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THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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THE RESTORATION 
OF EUROPE 

BY 
DR. ALFRED H. FRIED 



TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN 
BY 

LEWIS STILES GANNETT 



Nefo gorit 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1916 

All rights reserved 



Jit 



Copyright, 1916, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1916. 



Nortoooti IPrega 

J. 8. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 

JUN-I 1916 
©CU433224 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGES 

Chapter I. The Causes of the War . . . 1-25 

It is imperative that representatives of the va- 
rious nations meet after this world-catastrophe to 
discuss means of avoiding its repetition. When we 
distinguish its underlying causes from its immediate 
occasions, we find that the present war is the logical 
outcome of the kind of "peace" which preceded it. 
Although the industrial and technical advances of 
the last century have made the world interdependent 
in a sense previously undreamt of, there has been 
no political adjustment to the changed conditions. 
More intimate relations gave increasing opportunity 
for friction, which, so long as the irrational condition 
of international disorganization persisted, inevitably 
led to war. War being inevitable, it became the 
duty of each nation to seize the most favorable mo- 
ment. The "peace" was really a state of latent and 
constantly threatening war. 

Chapter II. The Age of International Anarchy . 26-53 
History, from primitive man to Pan-Americanism, 
is a record of increasing organization. The final step 
of world-organization will be a product of association 
rather than of force. Imperialism, supported by the 
twin fallacies of Mercantilism and Nationalism, is a 
false philosophy. It defeats its own endeavor to open 
markets and give nationality free play. It attempts 
to achieve national security by competitive arma- 
ment. But the value of armament is purely relative, 
and every nation cannot have an armament superior 
to that of every other. The armament system has 
indeed led to the system of alliances, a valuable if 
partial form of association. The fact that this war 
v 



vi TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGES 

could not be localized demonstrates the real inter- 
dependence of the world. Pacifism would achieve 
national security by realizing this interdependence 
in political and economic association. The Hague 
Conferences have made a significant beginning. But 
international relations must be changed before their 
work can be effective. The evolution toward inter- 
nationalism has been further evident in the increas- 
ing number of general international treaties regulating 
economic and social matters. The war has demon- 
strated the necessity of continuing that evolution out of 
international anarchy into international organization. 

Chapter III. The War's Lessoxs up to Date . 54-84 

The war has demonstrated that armaments are a 
symptom of international anarchy and cannot insure 
peace. The cause must be attacked. By their in- 
tense sensitivity, armaments have actually become a 
menace. Dilatory treatment of international dis- 
putes — such as is provided for in the Bryan treaties 
— will usually obviate war. But the mere provision 
of such machinery without the will to use it, is 
inadequate. 

The war has demonstrated that attempts to human- 
ize war are futile because self-contradictory. War 
suspends morality, and cannot be regulated. This 
war has been more cruel than past wars not because 
men have been more cruel, but because its area has 
been so vast and its battlefield so highly civilized. 
The Hague Conventions, by their qualifications, rec- 
ognize their own futility. 

The war has further demonstrated the futility of 
war as a political instrument, and destroyed the 
magic of military romance. 

Finally, it seems to confirm the prophecy of Jean 
Bloch that a modern world-war would be so tremen- 
dous that it could only end in exhaustion, and could 
hardly lead to any decisive result. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS vii 



Chapter IV. The Treaty of Peace and Future 

Peace 85-101 

This war really began decades ago. What we 
called "peace" was latent war. The treaty of peace 
^ must establish a durable peace. All the nations are 
supposedly fighting for a "lasting peace " — not real- 
izing that there is no such thing as a lasting peace 
maintained by force. Peace must be cooperative. 
The old status of perpetual fear and insecurity, de- 
fended only by armaments, would be intolerable. A 
different system must be established. There might 
well be two conferences after the war — one to attend 
to the mere cessation of hostilities, the other to lay 
the foundations of a new European organization. 
In this last the neutrals would join. 

Chapter V. International Problems . . . 102-133 

The pacifist movement suffers from Utopians who 
fail to realize that social evolution is not mechanical 
but organic. 

The organization of nations need not be compul- 
sory, but should rest upon the interest which the in- 
dividual states have in cooperation. 

Secret diplomacy and its elaborate etiquette are 
outgrown and have become dangerous. An anti- 
quated conception of sovereignty is one of its most 
dangerous idols. Diplomacy should be democratized. 

The system of alliances (balance of power) avoided 
some wars, but it nourished suspicion and distrust, 
and thus enhanced the ultimate danger of war. A 
general European alliance would give real security. 

There must be a reduction of armament. This 
cannot occur unless the danger of surprise attack is 
eliminated by some method of international control. 
The armament trade should be nationalized. 

The jingo press is one of the worst dangers of the 
age, deliberately inciting to war. It must be regu- 
lated — and chiefly by public opinion. 



viii TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Hate, the atmosphere which justifies the methods 
of force, must be done away with. It is not a polit- 
ical reality, nor has it ever been so permanent as we 
are prone to imagine. 

Chapter VI. The Cooperative Union of Europe . 134-145 
There is no need of political federation. The 
bonds of self-interest may be strengthened by eco- 
nomic association in a Cooperative Union. The Pan- 
American Union and the Pan-American Bureau are 
valuable precedents. Unless Europe so organize her- 
self, America will win an irretrievable advantage. 
Eventually such a Union would react upon political 
life, and a World-Union would be the final result. 

Chapter VII. The Pacifism of Yesterday and of 

To-morrow 146-157 

The titles of Kant's "Eternal Peace" and Bertha 
von Suttner's "Lay Down Your Arms" have never 
represented the programme of pacifists, but they have 
led to much misunderstanding. Pacifists maintain 
that wars are inevitable so long as international an- 
archy persists. They foresaw the present war. Nor 
has pacifism been without its effect upon scientific 
and popular thought. The future is in our hands. 
It is for us to determine whether it shall be a rever- 
sion to barbarism or an era of restoration. 



AUTHOR'S FOREWORD TO THE 
AMERICAN EDITION 

My dear Mr. Gannett : — 

From the little book of mine which you 
are presenting in English translation to the 
American public you have learned how sig- 
nificant for unfortunate Europe I believe the 
example of fortunate America to be. I see 
in the noble achievement of the Pan-American 
Union the example of organization which the 
European nations must follow if they wish 
to avoid in the future such catastrophes as 
that to which they are now fallen a sacrifice. 

I am therefore very glad that you are 
presenting my little book to the reading 
public of America. Perhaps it will help it 
to realize the great duty which, after the 
war, you Americans will have to fulfil toward 
us Europeans. Perhaps the Americans will 
see how urgent is their call to assist in the 



x AUTHORS FOREWORD 

task of restoring our continent. America's 
interests too are at stake. For if we in Eu- 
rope do not succeed in following the American 
example, there will be danger that the Euro- 
pean example may be followed in America. 
All friends of Humanity must strive to guard 
the world from this danger. 

I am, respectfully yours, 

Dr. Alfred H. Fried. 

Berne, February 24, 1916. 



TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD 

Alfred H. Fried was born in Vienna, 
Austria, in 1864, lived for many years in 
Berlin, and now makes his home in Berne, 
Switzerland. His interest in international 
problems has been lifelong. For decades he 
has been attacking medievalism and mili- 
tarism in the German and Austrian Empires. 
Twenty-five years ago he helped form the 
German Peace Society. For fifteen years he 
published the " Friedens-Warte " (Watch-tower 
of Peace) in Berlin, and since the war he has 
continued its publication in Zurich. Baroness 
Bertha von Suttner, author of "Lay Down 
Your Arms," a book which was said to have 
stimulated the Czar to call the first Hague 
Conference, was his intimate friend and a 
regular contributor to the "Friedens-Warte." 
In 1894 he translated into German the Rus- 
sian sociologist Novicow's little masterpiece, 
"War and its Alleged Benefits," and in 1915, 
after the outbreak of the war, he brought 



xii TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD 

out a second edition of it. A number of 
other translations and over a score of books 
stand to his credit, among the latter being a 
"Handbuch der Friedensbewegung " (1905, 
2d edition 1911), "Pan-Amerika" (1910) and 
"Der Kaiser und die Weltfriede" (1910). 
"The Restoration of Europe" was published 
in April, 1915. In 1911 he was awarded the 
Nobel Peace Prize, and in 1913 the Univer- 
sity of Leyden, Holland, gave him the honorary 
degree of Doctor of Political Science. 

What Germans will think about the prob- 
lem of War and Peace is of tremendous sig- 
nificance to the world. So long as we lay 
the entire blame for the war on either one 
of the leading belligerents, so long as we see 
a solution in the humiliation of one or the 
crushing of the other — so long true peace is 
impossible. The elimination of no single 
nation as a factor in international affairs will 
solve the world-problem. The disease is not 
national ; it is international. The task that 
will confront the world can never be achieved 



TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD xiii 

by one group of allies or in a spirit of hate 
— it must be a product of international co- 
operation. 

Dr. Fried represents a wing of German 
thought which had been gaining in influence, 
and which will profit by the revulsion of 
feeling that will inevitably follow the war. 
(The author of "J' Accuse" is one of those 
who had come under his influence.) Dr. Fried 
speaks as a German thinking internationally, 
never as a pro-German, lie nowhere con- 
dones in Germany what he condemns in 
other nations ; he never seeks excuses — he 
seeks causes. 

Dr. Fried does not offer us a panacea to 
abolish war. He knows there is no panacea. 
The fundamental problem is for nations to 
learn to cooperate in little things — and in 
bigger and bigger things. But the core of 
the matter is to get the will of the world 
behind international cooperation. To create 
this will is the great task of education before 
us. As Dr. Fried says, "A beautiful treaty 
for world-organization could be made in 



xiv TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD 

twenty-four hours, if only the will were there 
to give it life and to enforce it." 

The present situation is intolerable. A 
nation is unsafe if unprepared. It is pre- 
pared only if it has a navy stronger than that 
of some other nation or nations. It feels 
unsafe if they are stronger. Human nature 
being human nature, these others will feel 
unsafe if it is stronger. They will prepare 
more in order to achieve safety as they see 
it. Preparedness means competitive pre- 
paredness ; and ultimately, inevitably, that 
means war. Europe has taught us that. 
Yet a nation is unsafe if unprepared. This 
is the dilemma in which present-day inter- 
national anarchy leaves us. 

What are we going to do about it? Sit 
by and accept wars as eternally and con- 
stantly inevitable? That is not the Ameri- 
can way. Americans admit difficulties, but 
they face them. So does Dr. Fried. 

L. S. G. 

The translator's thanks are due to Dr. John Mez for 
assistance and suggestions in making this translation. 



THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 



THE RESTORATION OF 
EUROPE 

CHAPTER I 

The Causes of the War 

When the Titanic sank in April, 191 c 2, our 
minds were still functioning normally and 
sanely; to all of us it seemed a disaster that 
two thousand human beings should be killed 
by the whim of an iceberg. Sorrow and sym- 
pathy were not yet limited by national bound- 
ary-lines. As a logical consequence of so vast 
a disaster, and of the emotions which it had so 
deeply stirred, a conference of all the seafaring 
nations was called to devise means of prevent- 
ing the repetition of such an accident. 

When Europe awakens from the convulsions 
of this war, human life and human happi- 
ness, the rights of property and the dignity 

B 1 



2 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

of labor, will regain their former status. 
Just in proportion as the sacrifices have been 

greater and the destruction more terrible, will 
the reaction from this world-war be more 
certain. None but prating fools presume 
to glorify it. As after the shipwreck, men will 
consider how the repetition of so horrible 
an experience may be avoided. We would 
not be men if we did otherwise. Our minds 
are not so tragically primitive that we who 
know the lesser evil to be a preventable acci- 
dent, would accept the incomparably greater 
as Fate, inevitable, and to be accepted with 
resignation. 

When this continental earthquake, felt the 
world around, unparalleled in history, involv- 
ing the destruction of a whole flourishing 
generation, this cosmic spasm without prece- 
dent in the past, is at last happily at an 
end, millions and millions of men resolved and 
eager to do so, will be free to undertake the 
restoration of Europe. Theirs will not be the 
task oi a day. Those who are now in the prime 
of their powers will give their whole lives to 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 3 

it, and those who are children to-day will 
hardly see its completion. For the rest of us, 
we who up to the summer of 1914 enjoyed the 
glowing pageant of life and dared hope to be- 
hold the fulfilment of the old order of civiliza- 
tion, for us the world, during this period 
of reconstruction after the war, will be like 
a vast work-yard, with whose scaffoldings, 
rubbish-heaps and piles of material, w T ith 
whose disorder and disquiet we will have to 
put up, as long as we live. No mere re- 
covering of shattered roofs, no mere re-erect- 
ing and repainting of fagades, will be enough. 
The foundation was rotten, and that was 
what caused the catastrophe. 

This task of restoration must be undertaken 
at the same time everywhere, and from the 
very beginning the cooperation of all the 
nations must be sought. They will have to 
agree upon the general outline of the plans. 
The details will take care of themselves. As 
after the Titanic disaster, representatives of 
the various governments will be called to- 
gether to determine the best means of avoid- 



4 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

ing another catastrophe like that of 1914-15. 
The one aim of the work must be the pro- 
tection of the future. 

Civilization rests upon the ability of the 
human intellect to profit from experience. 
The operation of the complicated apparatus 
of daily life is made possible by the myriad 
experiences of the past. And the future may 
reach a higher level only because each day 
puts new experiences at its service. We will 
emerge from this fearful catastrophe, with 
all its sorrow and misery, richer in experience. 
It is not to be imagined that we will apply 
it only in the science of ordnance. J7Y must 
not allow military sciences to be the only ones to 
projit by these achievements of human thought. 
In the midst of this bloody struggle, many 
have ceased to think of anything else; but 
mankind has other spheres of activity very 
close to its heart, and when the agony is over, 
these other interests will make themselves felt 
with such primitive force that the threatening 
artillery-spirit will no longer predominate. 
The world-war must be utilized by the future 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 5 

in other ways — above all else, to teach us 
how to prevent repetition of such a catas- 
trophe. 

Humanity would not be worthy of its name 
if, after all these sinister experiences, it did 
not seriously inquire how such horrors were 
possible, what circumstances contributed to 
such a consummation, how they can be 
avoided in the future, and why such pre- 
ventive agencies as were already established, 
failed. In the days of so-called "peace" we 
did not heed the voice of warning, but allowed 
ourselves to be misled by fools into believing 
that wars were natural phenomena, similar to 
earthquakes and thunderstorms. Now that 
war has seized the very citadel of civiliza- 
tion we will never again allow ourselves to 
be so easily deceived. ^Ye are approaching 
an unprecedented period of criticism, very 
different from, and superior to, the old scep- 
ticism. Mankind, especially in Europe, will 
undertake a fundamental investigation of 
these things, and will not cease enlightening 
itself. The time for intellectual jugglers and 



6 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

tight-rope walkers is past. We will no longer 
allow ourselves to be deceived by simple 
tricks and intellectual sleight-of-hand. The 
spectre o( the millions slain, the presence oi 
the million cripples, the smoking ruins o( the 
towns and cities and the broken links o( 
commerce will form a picture in whoso frame 
only men who seek and toll the hard unvar- 
nished truth can hold a place. They alone 
will be recognised as able to utilize the lessons 
of the war for the service of the future. Only 
earnest students of fact will be able to deter- 
mine the causes of this catastrophe, and to 
demonstrate how its repetition may be 
avoided. 

In analyzing the real eanses of this war, we 
must not be content to discover its immedi- 
ate occasions. Cause and occasion arc two 
different things. What we saw developing 
in those eleven historic days (July 26 to 
August 4, 1914) was only the last phase of a 
process that had long been maturing. Short- 
sighted people see the beginning of the con- 
flict in what was rather its final phase, and 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 7 

delude themselves with the naive belief that 
Europe is burning and bleeding because 
Serbia would not permit the pari ieipat ion 
of an Austro-IIungarian oilieial in a judicial 
investigation, or that the world-war is only 
an accidentally enlarged punitive expedition 
for the crime of Serajevo. There are some 
already who realize that this conception is 
too naive, and seek for deeper motives. 
Every day new underlying causes of the war 
are discovered and displayed — which suffi- 
ciently proves that imaginations are awake, 
although there is very little probability to 
support most of these hypotheses. There 
can be only one cause, and we are offered a 
thousand. Such richness is evidence of false 
thinking. There are too many who seek, 
not to investigate facts, but to expound, 
or sometimes to propound, a theory. 

Since we regard the events of those eleven 
days as simply phenomena attendant upon 
the occasion of the war, we need not trouble 
to discuss them here. Not that such dis- 
cussion is insignificant — on the contrary. 



S THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

those diplomatic proceedings possess sympto- 
matic importance as showing the absurdity 

of the system which gave rise to them. They 
demonstrate its perversity and imbecility. 

But 1 do not think the time has yet eorae 
when we can discuss them without preju- 
dice. All the official collections of diplomatic 
papers make the same mistake. They all 
prove the absolute fairness and infallibility 
of one side, and impose the full burden of 
guilt upon the other. An impartial reader 
of these varicolored books might form a 
judgment from them to-day. But who is 
there in Europe to-day who is impartial? 
Thorough and unbiassed international discus- 
sion and objective study will be necessary before 
any authoritative conclusion can be reached. 

Even were this possible, we would not 
thereby have achieved our real purpose. 
We might learn what roles the individual 
governments played, might survey the actions 
of individual statesmen, know who at the 
last moment tried to postpone the war, and 
who precipitated it ; but we would still lack 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 9 

insight into the motives that influenced the 
action of the governments, and at a given 
moment madea given course inevitable. Only 
when we understand the impersonal elements 
in this catastrophe, shall we be able to solve 
the problem of the future. 

He who has faith in the human race and 
believes in human progress, may derive some 
comfort and consolation from an investiga- 
tion into these deeper and more impersonal 
Causes. He is spared the shame and horror 
of believing that a few individuals planned 
and caused this world-massacre. In perspec- 
tive we realize that these unfortunates were 
pulled by unseen strings, that they were ltd 
and not the leaders, and we rejoice, not so 
much because they are personally absolved, 
as because humanity is thereby acquitted of 
the charge of having given birth to such 
monsters in human countenance. In this 
sense it is a service to humanity to turn from 
the immediate occasions to an investigation 
of the deeper causes of the world-war. 

Pacifists, who long ago recognized these 



10 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

deeper causes, who prophesied the impending 
catastrophe and showed how it might have 
been avoided, have no difficulty in pointing out 

the ultimate causes of the present massacre. 
We can put it very briefly : The present 
war is the logical outcome of the kind of "peace" 
which preceded it. 

Was it really a condition of peace that came 
to an end in those July days of 1014? 

We must recall the political situation that 
gave rise to the catastrophe in order to an- 
swer this question and to understand the con- 
nection of the war with that "peace." 

"War is as old as man," we are told. The 
prophets of eternal war are so far right. 
But when they begin to shape the future 
according to the moulds of the past, they 
leave logic behind. Human nature changes, 
institutions change, even war changes. These 
changes produce various results. The rela- 
tion of the state to war has changed much 
in the last century. Formerly when a war 
came to an end, the warring nations entered 
upon a real peace. The economically hide- 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 11 

pendent state recovered in time of peace the 
condition of order necessary for its continued 
existence. (After all, peace and order are 
essentially synonymous.) International con- 
tacts were not yet developed — they occurred 
only in war-time. Peace as yet was unin- 
fluenced by them. 

But in the last century the world has com- 
pletely changed. Something that stands 
above and between the nations has been 
evolved. The State is no longer an indepen- 
dent organism. The rapid development of 
science and industry has begun to weld the 
states into a complex organism, and to 
make the formerly independent and self- 
sufficient units, parts of a higher whole. I 
know how sceptical some people are to-day in 
regard to this so-called internationalism. But 
there is as little reason to believe this move- 
ment ended as to fancy that a winter forest 
has lost its capacity to leaf and blossom. 
We are dealing with facts. The revolution- 
ary changes in the technical sciences have 
contracted the world to a degree of which even 



12 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

recent generations never dreamed. Men and 
nations are at eaeh other's doors. All the 
peoples of the earth have become interde- 
pendent. He who does not see this to-day. 
when the war has upset the entire life of the 
world, must be blind. There is interdepen- 
dence in material and in spiritual life, in 
production and exchange, in ideas : even 
emotions and sensations have become inter- 
nationalized. The interests of society have 
become common to such a degree that they 
can be prosecuted and regulated effectively 
only by the commonwealth of nations. In 
countless fields an international and often 
world-wide cooperation is already successfully 
established. A tendency toward "symbio- 
sis" has asserted itself with the force of a 
natural law. 

Meanwhile the political relations of nations 
and the spirit in which they are conducted 
have not kept pace with this mighty force 
which the progress of industry has called 
forth and is daily strengthening. Life has 
an entirely new orientation. But while the 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 13 

conditions of actual life have presented a 
picture of ever-increasing cooperation, order 
and organization, international relations have 
been conducted according to principles pre- 
served from the era of complete isolation and 
self-sufficiency. 

Hence that terrible discord which is the 
great evil of our age. 

The nations did not yet realize their actual 
community of interest. Their myriad inter- 
ests spread like a network over the entire 
earth, the farthest corners of which had been 
brought close to them by the development 
of industry and transportation. It was but 
natural that the opportunities for friction 
were thereby increased, that conflicts of 
interest, which had formerly been few and 
isolated, came to be of daily occurrence. 
The evil lay, not in the new conditions of the 
time, but in the neglect of political adjust- 
ment to these conditions, in the conflict 
between the tendency to interdependence and 
the old system of force. Friction occurred 
because of insufficient adjustment to the new 



14 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

conditions of life: it might have been re- 
moved by heeding the world-demand for 
organization. It arose only because there 
lingered the tradition of independent action 
instead of cooperation, because instead o( 
international organization, international anar- 
ch]/ had developed. The error was ours ; it 
was not inherent in the nature of things. 

With the progress of industry and science 
in the last generation, this international 
anarchy increased enormously. As interde- 
pendence and the struggle for power among 
men simultaneously developed, the conflict 
deepened. The national isolation produced 
in the normal relations between nations an 
antagonism as sharp and bitter, and as 
effective of evil, as had been produced by the 
wars of the past. It was even worse than 
before. 

Civilized society — at least as far as the 
leading states of Europe were concerned — 
ceased waging war. Wars occurred only on 
the peripherics of civilization. But for a long 
time the nations had not been living in real 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 15 

peace. They were not nominally at war, 
and they appeared to be at peace, but in 

reality the condition was one of latent war, 
differing from acute war, where the gnus 
are actually tired, only in degree and not i)i 
kind. Because the tools of war were at rest. 
because the swords did not clash nor the 
cannon thunder, men had eonie to believe 
that they lived in a society which could dis- 
pense with force. As a matter of fact, force 
controlled the situation, and arms, without 
actually coming into service, decided the 
course of events. 

For three decades European society had, 
without realizing it, lived in this condition, 
had been controlled by it. had grown into it. 
And this condition was called peace, because 
in days gone by. real peace had followed 
when wars were at an end. Peace is essen- 
tially order and organization. But organiza- 
tion within the individual states was no longer 
sufficient ; it had become equally necessary in 
the relations between states. There organi- 
zation was lacking, and hence there could be 



16 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

no true peace. It was really latent war, await- 
ing only the occasion to become acute. 

That is why I said that this war in which 
we arc to-Jay engulfed is the logical outcome 
of the kind of "peace" which preceded it. 
We did not have true peace. What we are 
experiencing with horror to-day is only the 
conclusion of a process to which the present 
generation had become accustomed, the in- 
evitable outcome of that condition of latent 
war which grew out of the lack of human 
adjustment to the natural course of evolution, 
and made anarchy dominant. 

Once we realize the essential identity of 
war and such "peace." once we understand 
that the present war is but the logical out- 
come of such "peace." then we approach 
the fundamental causes of the world-war. 

Pacifism, which public opinion, with amus- 
ing naivete, has declared a failure, because 
the outbreak of hostilities supposedly refuted 
its teachings, has in reality been fully justified 
by the war. Because we saw that war was 
bound to result from this condition of national 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 17 

isolation, we worked, warned and sought to 
develop the forces of organization as a pre- 
ventive. We had no illusions; we were 
engaged in the struggle against a catastrophe 
which we clearly foresaw, when it broke upon 
ns. We never doubted that the opposing 
forces were stronger. Just because we knew 
them to be stronger, we tried to strengthen 
the forces working for order. 

We saw the war coming. In an article 
published in 1908 entitled "The Foundations 
of Revolutionary (/.<., Constructive) Paci- 
fism, " I pointed out that "in this condition 
(of anarchy and isolation) each nation must 
count every other its enemy, every advance 
of one people means disaster for another, the 
welfare of one the loss of another. All 
forces work against each other, and out of 
the confusion there is often no way of escape 
except explosion, no sal rat ion except through 
the catastrophe of war. War may thus be a 
necessity because it liberates, because it 
eliminates conditions which have become in- 
tolerable, because it makes a way out ; in 



18 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

this case war means liberation and is actually 
rational. This, however, implies that war 
is only so long a necessity, so long a liberating 
force, so long a rational recourse, as the condi- 
tions which produce it arc irrational. It does 
liberate when the nations have found no 
escape through reason from the abnormal 
conditions in which they are living to-day. 
It is necessary as long as irrationality ham- 
pers the normal development of life. . . . War 
is rational only as long as the conditions of 
international society arc irrational." 1 further 
pointed out that the spontaneous explosion of 
accumulated tension-forces was no longer the 
greatest danger, since the forces of increasing 
organization were already working toward 
an equilibrium. To me the real peril lay in 
the fact that "the men who conduct the 
affairs of state, not recognizing this process, 
might still fear an explosion a fid therefore 
might deliberately attempt to anticipate it. 
The fear of being suffocated in the prevailing 
international anarchy is the chief cause of war 
to-dai/. For in this condition o( disorder the 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 10 

normal activity or development of one state 
threatens another with loss of breathing space 
and elbow-room. Naturally this other state, 
anxious for its own future, or (earing that its 
own normal development will be hampered, 
will deliberately make war before it comes to 
spontaneous explosion, in the hope that by 
deliberate aggression, by seizing the opportune 
moment, it may create conditions favorable to 
itself in the conflict." 

This characterization of European condi- 
tions was written seven years ago, immediately 
after the second Hague Conference. We 
pacifists, therefore, can hardly be accused 
of having been misled by illusions or sur- 
prised by the events of the summer of 1914. 
On the contrary, things have taken exactly 
the course which our understanding of the 
causes had led us to fear. We differ from 
others only in that we sought out and pointed 
out by what means the calamity might have 
been avoided. But our efforts did not have 
the success they merited. The forces working 
for organization, which we had awakened 



20 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

and unceasingly sought to strengthen, were 
too weak ; and so, as we had predicted, the 
explosion came. Let us therefore repeat : 
This world-war is the logical outcome of the 
kind of peace which preceded it. Its ultimate 
causes are not to be found in the plans or 
intrigues of individual governments or diplo- 
mats, but in that state of international anarchy 
which determined their plans and intrigues, 
and which finally reached a moment of 
tension when explosion was inevitable. 

Although the sins of European diplomacy 
in those eleven days were many, and although 
a little more determination might have pre- 
vented this war, just as worse crises had been 
passed in recent years, we must admit that 
many of the negotiations which without this 
insight into their deeper motives appear in- 
comprehensible and almost criminal, are thus 
quite explicable. 

European diplomacy in the summer of 1914 
was not guided by the thought of any form 
of European federation. It was only too 
far removed from the condition of inter- 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 21 

national organization which, in the article 
written in 1908 to which I have already re- 
ferred, I defined as a system of economic 
forces in which "the parts combine in a 
higher whole, the organs unite to form an 
organism, and the forces work together for 
mediation and cooperation" Nothing like 
that existed last summer. European diplo- 
macy was entirely under the influence of that 
international anarchy described above, in 
which "every advance of one people means 
disaster for another," in which explosion 
seems a blessed relief from tension, and in 
which it may appear wise precaution to 
cause such an explosion by deliberate ag- 
gression. 

Thus we can readily understand how the 
Austro-Hungarian monarchy saw a danger 
to its own vital interests in the struggle for 
national expansion on the part of its southern 
neighbor. It feared the seizure of some of 
its own territory and the loss of some of its 
population. In view of the entire lack of 
international organization in Europe, we can 



: r 1 1 E B K STO U ATI N F E 13 R P E 

perhaps understand the Austrian severity of 
procedure and her refusal to accept any pro- 
posals of mediation — all the more when we 
remember that the dogma of the supposed 
imminent decline oi the Habsburg monarchy 
made it imperative for her to show vigorous 
signs of life. 

But we can also understand that the same 
disorganization which led Austria -Hungary 
to adopt such a course, made it equally 
necessary for Russia to regard the success 
of such a policy as a threat to herself. 
Since in this anarchy "the advance of one 
people means disaster for another," the suc- 
cess of Austria -Hungary on the Balkan Pen- 
insula necessarily — always from the point 
of view of the international anarchy — im- 
plied defeat for Russia. We can also under- 
stand that Germany must fear, in a defeat 
of her ally by Russia, a defeat for herself. 
And finally England's attitude can be ex- 
plained on the same principle — a German 
defeat of Russia and France would have 
to be conceived as defeat for England. 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 23 

If the prevailing international disorganiza- 
tion explains the confused character of the 
negotiations, il also explains why they were so 

hurried — and it was really this harry which 
rendered futile the opposing stand of the forces 
for peace. The disorganized state of affairs 
was unquestionably the cause of that over- 
anna men t which was supposed to be the only 
protection against the catastrophe. Unfor- 
tunately, the world-catastrophe was required 
to prove that this idea o( defence was illusory, 
as indeed all reasoning based on anarchy must 
be. The armaments themselves made the 
collapse inevitable. Their steady increase 
made them more and more sensitive. Their 
effect iveness could be distinctly increased by 
redistributions and improvements in the sys- 
tem of transportation. Finally this alleged 
"guarantee of peace/' in logical demonstra- 
tion of its unfitness, became so extremely 
sensitive that a start of only twenty-four 
hours in the mobilization of one state ap- 
peared an irretrievable disadvantage to the 
other. The same international anarchy ex- 



84 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

plains Germany's twelve-hour ultimatum to 
Russia, with all its fearful consequences. 

We can understand now why the meas- 
ures rushed through because of this dis- 
organization led the German government to 
suspect that those hurried proceedings were 
only the last steps in a plot to strangle her, 
so that she found herself in the position I 
have described where "a state, anxious for 
its own future, fearing that its own normal 
development will be hampered, will deliber- 
ately make war before it comes to spontane- 
ous explosion, in the hope that by deliberate 
aggression, by seizing the opportune moment, 
it may create conditions favorable to itself 
in the conflict." We may grant that Edward 
VI I sincerely strove to establish European 
peace upon a tinner basis; and yet, in view 
of the prevailing international disorganiza- 
tion, we cannot blame the German statesmen 
if they considered the fulfilment of his desires 
a menace to Germany, increasing the danger 
of her loss of "breathing-space and elbow- 
room." 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 25 

This explains many of the negotiations and 

decisions of those unhappy eleven days. Of 
course it does not justify them. He who is 
convinced that health and salvation can come 
to this suffering continent only through 
world-organization, and who believes such 
organization already possible, must regard 
those actions — unless so explained — as 
criminal madness. But he must admit that 
the international anarchy with its false as- 
sumptions did lead inevitably to the dan- 
gerous ideas, conclusions and actions which 
determined the attitude of statesmen, and 
were the underlying causes of the world-war. 



CHAPTEB 11 
The A>ge or [international A^narchi 

The fanatics of force deny that the process 

of international organization is approaching 
its realisation and that there exists a natural 
tendency to cooperation. They justify their 

attitude with all sorts of arguments based 

upon their own peculiar philosophy. They 

kanize the teachings of history they would 
conduct the affairs of to-day according to 

precepts handed down from the time of 

Charlemagne. But the right of the past can 

no longer be right in a present that is com- 
pletely changed. The change has been so 
unprecedentedly rapid and revolutionary that 

the militarists cannot realize that not even 
the immediate past ean give US rules of action 
for the present. Psychologically and tech- 
nologically, even the age of Bismarck lies 
far behind us. 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 37 

They see in history nothing but the decisions 
of force, entirely overlooking the fact that 
the whole course of world-history is a process 
of constantly increasing organization, that an 
uninterrupted line of progress loads from 
isolated prim it ire man up to modern Pan- 
Americanism. They do not realize that this 
evolution of the human race in history is 
simply the expression of a universal natural 
law that leads from chaos to world-organiza- 
tion as from cell to Homo Sapiens. Evolu- 
tion is always the outcome of association ami 
organization. 

But oven those who begin to understand 
this process, ami modify their philosophy ac- 
cordingly, attempt to prove that the various 
steps toward organization in the past could 
not have been taken without the use of force. 
They conclude that future progress in human 
organization can take place only by war and 
subjugation. To the creation oi the world- 
state they would apply the experiences of the 
age when nations were in the making, entirely 
neglecting the changed conditions and the 



28 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

difference in purpose. Even the methods of 
nation-building have been modified. The 
crude method of subjugation is replaced in 
modern history by such federative associa- 
tion as we see in the United States of America 
or in the German Empire. Why should the 
world-state, i.e., the political adaptation of 
all the nations to the world-tendency tow- 
ards interdependence, be created by that 
most impractical method, subjugation — espe- 
cially when the conditions have so entirely 
changed? Here the method of subjugation, 
commonly known as Imperialism, 1 is futile. 
For it is based on the attempt to assure the 
world-interests of the individual state, and 
upon the will of each state to maintain itself 
in the world-competition. Imperialism at- 
tempts to achieve its aims clumsily, by a 
policy of force, with the desire to reap for 
a single state all the benefits of world-or- 
ganization. It would impose order upon the 
world instead of attaining it by mutual 

1 Dr. John Mez suggests that perhaps Dr. Fried consistently uses 
the word Imperialismus instead of Militarismus because of the 
censorship. — Tr. 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 29 

agreement. The method of force must neces- 
sarily come to grief because the different 
Imperialist ambitions conflict, and hence it 
hinders rather than helps the development of 
the desired order and stability. Ultimately 
the nations will have to come to an agree- 
ment. For Imperialism means not only the 
will to world-power on the part of one state, 
but the firm and united opposition of all the 
other states which are thereby menaced. 
The only way in which it can work toward 
organization is by organizing opposition. 
A united opposition will arise against any 
state whose Imperialist policy menaces other 
states. It will play the part of the nucleus 
whose friction organizes the cell. 

The fallacy of Imperialism is shown by its 
very foundations — Mercantilism and Na- 
tionalism. 

The advocates of force justify their methods 
by pointing out the necessity of providing 
markets for home products. But this neces- 
sity results from the lack of world-organiza- 
tion and the consequent attempt of each 



30 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

state to assure these conditions of life for 
itself alone, without consideration of the vital 
rights of others. When political organization 
of the world shall open its markets to all the 
members of the world-state, there will no 
longer be any necessity for their violent ap- 
propriation by any one member. Thus Impe- 
rialism is compelled to advocate force for a 
goal which could be attained without force 
were it not that Imperialism itself prevents 
such organization. Such a circle of errors is 
evidence of the unfitness of the method. 

It is in commerce, in the exchange of goods 
(the most conspicuous characteristic of mod- 
ern organization), that international inter- 
dependence is most obvious. Thanks to 
our intellectual progress as expressed in 
industrial and technical development, we 
are to-day in a position to use the prod- 
ucts of the entire earth in any part of the 
earth and to put the highest products of 
technical skill and adaptation in any one 
place to service in all other places. World- 
commerce makes the technical skill which 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 31 

centuries have developed in any one part of 
the earth serviceable in all other regions. 
To manufacture goods may take a long time, 
but by modern methods of transportation 
they are rapidly distributed, even to those 
who have given no time to their production. 
By exchange we anticipate our own develop- 
ment. What a tremendous factor for organi- 
zation ! With its aid we transcend thousands 
of miles, and centuries as well — both space 
and time. 

But this exchange of goods brings with it 
not only friendly relations and contacts, but 
friction as well — more and greater friction 
than when nations were more isolated. What 
does the Imperialist conclude? That com- 
merce is not an agency for peace but a cause 
of war ! It is the false conclusion of the 
near-sighted. War is not caused by com- 
merce, but by the maladaptation of political 
relations to the neiv conditions created by world- 
commerce. Commerce has increased and ex- 
tended the contacts and relationships — and 
these require organization far more than ever 



38 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

before. Given world-organization, the fric- 
tion would cease, or, if it continued, it would 

be settled not by armed conflict but by treaty. 
Imperialism justifies itself by the alleged 
inevitability of war on account of these com- 
mercial conflicts. What they really demon- 
strate is the irrationality and harmfulness 
of Imperialism. 

The other false buttress of Imperialism 
is Nationalism. As in Mercantilism, so in 
Nationalism, Imperialism perpetuates an 
evil, which it alone makes an evil. 

The individual states were established by 
Nationalism. But because Nationalism has 
the peculiarity of undermining the inner life 
of nations and of developing embittered 
antagonisms between nations, it is one of the 
chief hindrances to internationalism. Essen- 
tially it too is characterised by a desire for 
association, but for a too limited form of 
association. It emphasizes certain super- 
ficialities, which it misrepresents as the high- 
est ideals of humanity. Behind such asso- 
ciation is the desire to repulse all that is 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 88 

outwardly different* Only the most primitive 

Stage oi organization is achieved through 
antagonism. There the intellect is not the 
decisive factor, not the will to progress, but 
an instinctive association against anything 

external. In this lower stage of evolution 
solidarity is achieved by means of hostility 
instead of reconciliation. Thus Nationalism 
is an instrument created by disorganization, 

and can serve only disorganization. The one- 
sided emphasis of Nationalism creates that 
very oppression of the nation which it is 
supposed to remove. Only by the political 
organization of all mankind can each nation 
attain its full freedom and become an active 
agent of human progress. Imperialism, 
founded on Nationalism, obstructs such free 
development of the nation. Its fundamental 
principles of oppression and violent annexa- 
tion are inherently opposed to national equal- 
ity and to national greatness. Here again 
it proves to be the great obstacle in the way 
of natural evolution. 

Imperialism does not change the final 



34 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

course of world-history, but for a time it does 
distort and mislead human thought. It pre- 
vents the recognition of natural tendencies, 
and forces humanity with infinite toil and 
suffering to fight its way back from the side- 
paths into which it had been misled, on to 
the highroad of true social progress. It 
destroys the life of generations. With tre- 
mendous industry its apostles seek to give 
it a scientific political basis. The great 
teachings of Darwin, which promised such a 
wonderful insight into the secret processes 
of nature, have been distorted by the Im- 
perialists and misapplied to politics. In 
transferring the doctrine of the Struggle for 
Existence of the various species to the entirely 
different struggle of social organizations within 
a species, they made a fatal error. Novicow, 1 
who was the first to refute these misconcep- 
tions, has shown that struggle, which is 
universal among stars, animals, plants and 
men, follows different methods in each case. 

1 Novicow's thought has recently been made available in English 
in George Nasmyth's " Social Progress and the Darwinian Theory " 
(Putnams, 1916). 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 35 

The stars attract matter ; the stronger animal 
eats the weaker, and by digestion transforms 
it into a part of its own self. But one celes- 
tial body cannot chew another, nor can a 
lion attract cells away from an antelope. 
The astronomic struggle is different from 
the biological, and so is the sociological. 
The fact that the lion tears open the antelope 
does not imply that the massacre of the popu- 
lation of one state by that of another is a 
natural law. But Imperialism leads us into 
just such a sea of error. It breeds racial 
conceit and turns a noble patriotism into 
Chauvinism. 

The insanest product of Imperialism is the 
system of competitive armament which has 
characterized the last generation. Here again 
an institution quite justifiable in itself has 
been transformed and caricatured. There 
can be no rational objection if a group of 
men seek to protect their peculiar institutions 
by measures which enable them to repel 
attacks from without. Even when the world- 
state is completely organized, some form of 



86 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

military force may still be necessary, just as 
the police persist in the individual states 
and eities. The irrationality of the present 
system consists in the fact that Imperialism 
has made an instrument intended for defence 
into a means of realizing Imperialist ambi- 
tions of aggression and subjugation. This 
altered purpose makes armaments relative 
and always incomplete because their true 
purpose is never defined. They have ceased 
to be merely defensive. They have become 
a means for attaining certain Imperialist 
ends. Thus military safety is no longer 
dependent upon the attainment of a certain 
absolute strength, determined by the defen- 
sive needs of the state, but on the relation 
of one state's armament to that of others. 
The value of armament came to depend 
solely upon its permanent superiority to that 
of otlier nations. An uninterrupted increase 
of armament became imperative in the end- 
less pursuit of that unattainable Utopia. 
It was an attempt to square a circle. The 
reciprocal increase permitted no pause, but 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 37 

became Faster and madder every day. For 
it is inherent in the system of armament that 
the protection which it gives a state is greater 
the more that state menaces other states. 
So long as international anarchy persists, 
armament protects only so long as it menaces, 
and the tendency of Imperialism is to accen- 
tuate its menacing character. But since this 
menace forces other states to increase their 
measures of protection, the whole system of 
competitive armament came to resemble a 
great juggernaut which in its course destroys 
the whole civilization of the nations which 
are seeking national " security. " The sell- 
contradiction of international anarchy could 
not be shown more clearly than by this unrea- 
sonable system of competitive armament. In 
contrast to organization — the natural system 
of conservation of energy — it is the unnat- 
ural high-water mark of wasted energy. 

Nevertheless, here as everywhere, the 
natural tendency to association, the will to 
reason in the midst of madness, can be dis- 
covered in the attempt to attain some per- 



38 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

manency despite the increasing friction and 
the threatening conflicts. The tremendous 
expenditure on armament made it possible 
to overcome some of the frictions caused by 
world-commerce, simply by causing fear that 
these huge instruments might be used. Thus 
they actually worked for the peaceful settle- 
ment of difficulties — a result which might 
have been attained by organization with less 
effort and more certainty. 

But in still another fashion the armament 
system shows the influence of the tendency 
to interdependence. Imperialism, in seeking 
world-domination, saw the possibility of a 
world of united enemies. Competitive arma- 
ment offered no relief for such a predicament. 
A state may be convinced that it can become 
stronger than one other, or than a group of 
other states, but even this insanity could not 
deceive it into believing that it could be 
stronger than all the others put together. 
So they sought a partial form of association 
through alliances, — partly to strengthen 
themselves, partly with the hidden purpose 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 39 

of reducing the power of their opponents by 
limiting their possibilities of alliance. Those 
were the first faltering baby-steps towards 
international organization. But they suffered 
from the fact that they were made uncon- 
sciously, without a full recognition of cause 
and purpose, experimentally and in the dark, 
under mechanical compulsion. Thus it hap- 
pened that in recent years governments 
sometimes justified their increases of arma- 
ments by the necessity of fulfilling obligations 
to their allies. A dim suspicion that associa- 
tion was the way out of anarchy seemed to 
prevail, but the courage to take the decisive 
step was lacking. They stopped half way, 
and that half-work is taking its revenge to-day. 
The system of alliances which might have 
been so noble a beginning, led to the world- 
catastrophe. 

But is not even this world-war a proof of 
the existence of a tendency to interdepen- 
dence? It was not the system of alliances 
alone that allowed a local dispute to grow 
into a conflict of all the great powers of 



40 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

Europe. It was that community of interests 
which makes all the nations fellow -sufferers 
in every war on the surface o( the earth. 
Bound by commerce and trade, they are 
also fellows in the convulsions of international 
anarchy. Not only the warring nations, but 
the so-called neutrals as well, are fellow- 
fighters, if without direct use of arms; in 
any ease they are fellow-sutierers. This loeal 
conflict grown into a world-war must prove 
to the blindest what a stage of world-organisa- 
tion has already been attained. Misery and 
sorrow, death and destruction, have spread 
over every part of the earth, just because 
the normal eourse of life was upset at one 
point. The cry uttered at the beginning of 
the Austro-Serbiau conflict in 1909, "Localize 
the conflict," is a telling witness of the non- 
reeognition of the change which had come 
over politieal relationships. The conflict 
could not be loealized. The only alternative 
to a peaceful settlement was a European 
war, a world-eatastrophe. Ami the fact that 
laborers in Chicago, Rio de Janeiro ami South 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 41 

Australia arc unemployed and suffering to- 
day, 1 is proof that the Serbian idea of national 
expansion was more important to them and 
less remote than they had imagined. The 
world-war is thus a new proof of the inter- 
dependence of humanity and a demonstration 
of the foolishness of the methods of the past. 
Even in this dark cup there is a gleam of 
light. 

Such glints of light give some comfort. 
They indicate how blindly mankind is driven, 
how 7 little we control the course of evolution. 
As long as men are deceived by such false 
teachings as Imperialism, they will continue 
to play this unworthy role. Not until we 
open our eyes and cast aside these errors, 
will humanity tread the path of progress 
with the imperishable genius of its kind. 

We have recognized international anarchy 
as the result of the maladaptation of J 
political institutions to the natural tendency 
of human groups to become interdependent. 

1 Written early in 1015. — Tr. 



42 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

Imperialism is the false instrument by which 
men, trusting to the experiences of a pre- 
vious period of history, have sought to 
remedy this situation. Consequently, instead 
of cooperating by mutual agreement, they 
have had recourse to brute force, and have 
been driven into that mad rivalry in arma- 
ment which led to this world-war. 

Imperialism still prevails, but its sway is 
no longer undisputed. One group has recog- 
nized the direction of evolution, has seen the 
evil of international anarchy and analyzed 
its causes, and has pointed out by what means 
this greatest evil of humanity can be done 
away with. Pacifism has arisen to oppose 
Imperialism; it is gaining ground and has 
begun to use its influence to adapt the political 
relations of states to their natural tendencies. 
The system of force still dominates, but it 
has met worthy opposition. Pacifism has 
not been without influence. The catastrophe 
does not prove that pacifism was wrong, but 
that it was not sufficiently influential. The 
war, demonstrating as it does the failure of 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 43 

Imperialism, will undoubtedly increase the 
prestige of pacifism. 

Pacifism had already stirred the will to 
international organization. It had already 
created institutions to serve this organization. 
A tremendous campaign was in progress the 
world over. The contest between the sup- 
porters of the old philosophy of force and the 
new school of thought was uninterrupted. 
Step by step the apostles of force and the 
believers in anarchy were driven back. They 
fought with the lowest weapons of calumny, 
insult and scorn. They could not refute 
the pacifist position, so they tried to dis- 
credit it. Such methods cannot bring per- 
manent success. The principles of pacifism 
spread. 

The institutions of the Hague, so laughed at 
by the militarists, — just as robber knights 
once scoffed at the " Truce of God," — are a 
valuable and visible sign of pacifist progress. 
True, to-day, amid the thunder of cannons, 
he who makes merry over the empty Palace 
of Peace by the sand-dunes of Scheveningen, 



44 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

is sure of the applause of the mob. But 

jests cannot destroy such a work. The 
Mausers, the submarines and the dread- 
noughts plying their trade in the neighborhood 
of the Palace of Peace seem more important 
to-day, but they are not ! 

The Hague Palace and the instruments of 
destruction are products of the same human 
genius, but the latter are products o( human 
misunderstanding, the former of a logical 
recognition of things as they are. The oiu 4 
serves destruction, the other conservation and 
construction. It is easy to explain why the 
cannon and torpedoes are more effective to- 
day. They are ready for use, and the will to 
use them is behind them. The work o( the 
Hague is not yet complete; the will to use 
it does not yet prevail. But it requires only 
that mankind shall so will, and the machin- 
ery of the Hague will function as effectively 
as do the marvels of military technique 
to-day, and these in turn will be as dumb and 
powerless as is now the Palace mi the coast of 
Holland. The tool can never complete the 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 45 

deed without the human will behind it. To- 
day that will is behind the tools of militarism. 
But the battle is on to put that will behind 
the instruments of law and order. 

The Hague Conventions are one product 
of this battle. Tiny are a compromise be- 
tween the old and the new. The representa- 
tives of the old could not prevent their being 
made — they were compelled to agree to 
that; but they prevented their receiving 
binding force. The Hague treaties are volun- 
tary rather than compulsory, recommenda- 
tions rather than obligations, more apparent 
than real. In so far the believers in force 
triumphed. To-day they laugh scornfully 
because those Conventions have broken down. 
Their attitude shows the character of the 
opposition which pacifism has to meet. They 
who were themselves the cause of that weak- 
ness, now seek to prove by that weakness 
the untenability of pacifism. That is not 
fighting fairly. 

None knew better than the pacifists what 
was to be expected from those agreements. 



46 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

We fully realized they could not always 

prevent war. We regarded them rather as a 
moral achievement. In this compromise with 

the believers in force, we saw only the first 
victory of our point of view over that of law- 
lessness. We knew that so long as there 
was no international organization, war. which 
we regarded as an explosion of force, — 
whether spontaneous or deliberate, — could 
not be prevented by rational measures, be- 
cause the conflict was fundamentally irra- 
tional. We knew that in the chaotic condi- 
tions of international life, rational methods 
of settlement would have no chance if the 
slightest eloak of legal just itieat ion could be 
thrown over the use of force -as it almost 
always can be. Since such decorative and 
modest cloaks of legality have nothing what- 
ever to do with the essential conflicts, legal 
institutions could, under the circumstances, 
have no importance. Only when the nations 
did not want war. because the dispute seemed 
too unimportant, or because the general situa- 
tion was unfavorable, did they avail them- 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 47 

selves of the institutions which pacifism had 
created. The immediate causes of the present 

war obviously could have been settled by 
Legal means if all the participants had wished 
it. But, as we saw in the first chapter, those 
immediate causes were merely the super- 
ficial occasion of the war; the war in reality 
was the final stage in a long series of conflicts 
of interest caused by international anarchy. 
Such conflicts cannot be settled by Hague 
Conventions. 

This, however, does not prove the Hague 
Conventions superfluous. It only proves that 
such conflicts cannot be abolished by a mere 
recommendation to use other means of settle- 
ment. Just as force is the product of anarchy, 
so law is the product of organization. If the 
conflicts are to be settled by law instead of by 
war, their character must be modified. When 
international law takes the place of inter- 
national lawlessness, international conflicts 
will lose their menacing character, and will 
be settled by law. That is where the task 
of pacifism begins. When this fundamental 



4S I'll E R E S r B A T 1 N V E DRO P E 

change in international relations has taken 
plaee. the work at the Hague will bear fruit. 
Then the will of man. the will to establish the 
reign of law. will animate those technical 
agreements, and give them life. Then their 
great import anee will be appreciated. To 
wrest them from the fanatics of force was the 
first great victory. Let them laugh at the 
empty Palace of Peace! They hate that 
building and the treaties behind it. It can- 
not put the cannon to sleep, but its very 
existence is a crying protest against the 
work o( cannons a protest that will yet 
awaken mankind ami destroy the foundations 
of the whole system of force. From that 
quiet building there goes forth a warning 
that will become dangerous to anarchy and 
its defenders. 

The achievements of the Hague are not the 
only comforting evidence that the sway of 
militaristic Imperialism is no longer un- 
opposed. 1 have emphasised them only 
because they are the most visible sign of 
the opposing forces of paeitism. and the most 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 49 

immediate moans of avoiding the resort to 
force. Civilization on the eve of war was 
far more closely knit than most of us realized, 
Imperialism, the child of anarchy, was still 
the stronger force, but the evolution toward 
community of interest and action had made 
vast progress. The war lias produced an 
attitude of mind which has made it customary 
to speak of international treaties and inter- 
national cooperation with scornful superiority, 
and to consider effort spent on them a waste 
of energy. Such a point of view is not to 
be taken seriously ; it will disappear after 
the war as the snow wastes under the spring 
sun. For these things are no longer mere 
ideas or Utopian efforts; they are hard facts. 
To-day, in the midst of a war which has 
broken all bonds, there are some who laugh 
at international treaties. Yet it would be 
hard to imagine a world without treaties. 
After all, it is a treaty for which this war is 
being fought, and all the bloody sacrifice is 
for its sake. When the fever is past, there 
will surely be a new and higher appreciation 



50 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

of the value of treaties; and the work of 
international cooperation, interrupted on the 
28th of July, 1914, will be resumed. We 
shall realize that only the inadequate strength 
of the treaties, and the insufficient recognition 
of their value to humanity, precipitated the 
catastrophe. Perhaps we shall remember that 
it was the infraction of the Treaty of Berlin 
by one of the parties to it acting without the 
consent of the others, that brought on the 
whole miserable business, after that treaty 
had for a generation protected Europe from 
its most serious sources of danger. 

Internationalism long ago ceased to be a 
mere idea. It had already exercised an appre- 
ciable influence on the life of nations, and 
established important precedents which gave 
ground for hope that the nations would adapt 
their political relations to the natural evo- 
lution toward a World-State. An interna- 
tional organization cannot be created, as 
are other political bodies, by a single deed 
of force. It must come gradually. The 
development of international cooperation 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 51 

demonstrates the progress which had already 
been made. In other works * I have shown 
how that evolution was progressing in spite 
of the opposition of the governments. New 
interests gave a new meaning to old treaties. 
Common interests became more important 
than individual. Bipartite treaties were re- 
placed by general agreements, and these dealt 
less with political matters than with the 
regulation of general commerce and trans- 
portation. The number of international 
treaties sanctioning violent aggression steadily 
decreased, while those which provided by 
general agreement for the peaceful conquest 
of markets and avenues of trade became more 
and more frequent. Finally treaties were 
signed which, instead of merely regulating the 
conditions existing after a war, were actually 
intended to prevent war. That was the case at 
both Hague Conferences, in 1899 and in 1907. 
Gradually an actual international administra- 
tion was developed, and the necessary machin- 

1 See, among others, "Handbuch der Friedensbewegung," 2d 
edition, vol. 1, pp. 118 sqq. 



V 



52 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

ery provided for. Between 1874 and 1909 no 
less than eighty-six such international agree- 
ments were made. The increasing number and 
importance of the international conferences 
is an eloquent witness to the development 
of international organization. From the Con- 
gress of Vienna (1815) to 1910 one hundred 
and fifty-eight such conferences were held. 
Ten of these came in the first half of the last 
century, ninety-nine in the second half, and 
in the first ten years of the present century, 
there were forty-nine. The demand for 
organization cannot be more eloquently 
demonstrated. Formerly such conferences 
devoted themselves solely to the settlement 
of the aftermath of war (so the great Con- 
gresses of Miinster, Utrecht and Vienna) ; 
but since the Congress of Vienna only two 
of these conferences (Paris 1856 and Berlin 
1878) have been concerned with past wars, 
while all the others have had to do with the 
international regulation of economic, scientific 
and social affairs. Their character is indicative 
of the tendency to international organization. 



INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY 53 

These facts have not been without influ- 
ence on politics. Treaties became more and 
more the backbone and scaffolding of the 
society of nations that was coming into being. 
The world-war has rather affirmed than dis- 
proved this. Were it not that the forces of 
international anarchy still held the upper 
hand, this scaffolding would have become 
stronger and stronger until eventually it was 
unshakable. But the forces were uneven. 
The leading spirits did not yet understand the 
new phenomena and the new necessities. Mil- 
itaristic ideas triumphed ; the forces of anarchy 
were still in the ascendency. So, quite logi- 
cally, the world came to that disaster which to- 
day appalls us. This must be the high-water 
mark of anarchy. A change in international 
relations has become an imperative necessity. 

Humanity has before itself the task of shap- 
ing a future worthier of itself. Such hopes have 
been awakened by this war. We begin to see 
how it has destroyed old prejudices and laid 
bare old errors, how drastically it has exposed 
false conclusions and taught new lessons. 



CHAPTER III 

The War's Lessons up to Date 

As I write, the war is still in progress. 
When it is ended, the military strategists will, 
as after every previous war, study it and pre- 
pare to use its lessons for future wars. It is 
a doubtful undertaking at best, for there is no 
sphere of human activity so subject to revolu- 
tionary technical changes as warfare, and the 
experience of the present is worth little for 
the future. Because of the rapid evolution of 
military technique we can, with General 
von der Goltz, call the battle of the future 
the riddle of the Sphinx. Every war teaches 
new technical lessons. But there are other 
points of view from which war is just as sig- 
nificant. As a social phenomenon it is of such 
tremendous importance that its investigation 
must not be left to military men, who in reality 
are only interested in its actual conduct. 

54 



WAR'S LESSONS UP TO DATE 55 

It must be studied from a sociological view- 
point with the express purpose of discovering 
how to avoid such catastrophes in the future. 
We need not wait until hostilities cease. 
Not even then will all the sociological data 
of the war be at hand. Data will continue 
to stream in long after the treaty of peace is 
signed, and some of the most important will 
come last. The American biologist, David 
Starr Jordan, rightly emphasized Benjamin 
Franklin's words, "Wars are not paid for 
in war-time; the bill comes later." It 
will be years before all the social effects of this 
war will be visible. Hence it is our duty to 
study its lessons while it is still in progress. 
We cannot postpone its discussion to that 
distant time when all the material will be 
available. It is the more important that we 
fulfil this duty because our purpose is not 
to wage, but to prevent, future wars. Such 
a task cannot be begun too soon. In fact, 
the course of this war, and especially its 
beginning, offers rich material which can, 
and indeed must, be evaluated immediately, 



56 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

if our ideas of European restoration arc to be 
realized. 

I begin with that problem which the war 
has proved to be of primary importance — 

the problem of armament*. 

In the previous chapter I tried to show- 
that the degeneration of the system of arma- 
ments demonstrated the inefficiency of inter- 
national anarchy. Armaments, although in- 
tended for protection, can protect only by 
menacing others, and these others are forced 
to adopt counter-measures which in turn 
menace that state which first sought protec- 
tion in armament. This reaction led to a 
competition in armaments which finally 
became economically intolerable without at- 
taining the security at which it aimed. Ar- 
maments have proved themselves deceptive 
instruments of Imperialism. They give no 
state a permanent superiority, but merely 
produce a continuous restlessness and pal- 
pitation in all: and such a situation is in- 
tolerable in the long run. 

Pacifism has consistently pointed out the 



WARS LESSONS UP TO DATE 57 

fallacy of competitive preparedness, and has 
emphatically rejected the supposition that 
it insured peace. Being a symptom of law- 
lessness, armaments could never secure 
genuine peace ; at most they have lengthened 
the period between wars and delayed the 
conversion of "latent" wars into acute, thus 
maintaining a condition which has nothing in 
common with that true peace to which we 
have looked forward. Understanding the 
causes of this phenomenon, we knew the evil 
could not be removed by any mere superficial 
attack, but that its causes must be eliminated 
— that is, law must be substituted for force. 
We have often been accused of demanding 
immediate disarmament, but the serious litera- 
ture of pacifism contained no such suggestion. 
"The road to reduction of armaments is by 
way of international organization. Arma- 
ments will disappear of themselves as this 
organization develops." So I wrote in 1908 
in "The Foundations of Revolutionary Paci- 
fism." Positive pacifist effort was directed 
not against the symptom (armament), but 



58 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

against its causes. Continuous attention to 
the development of international cooperation, 
and its conscious furtherance, has always 
seemed to us the most effective way to elimi- 
nate this destructive competition in arma- 
ments. 

That no other kind of development could 
bring true peace, that it alone could give 
security, was clear to us from the beginning. 
We knew that armament was no peace 
insurance. In all our writings and at all our 
congresses we emphasized the fact that arma- 
ment w T as not a reliable instrument to main- 
tain even that condition of latent war which 
most people had become accustomed to call 
peace. The outbreak of this world-war has 
shown how foolish was the confidence placed 
in armaments by the fanatics of force. Their 
false slogan, "Si vis pacem, para bellum," 
has proved a hopeless delusion ; it was the 
armaments themselves which finally made 
war inevitable. We had prepared for war, 
and our instruments of warfare were so sensi- 
tive that they almost fired themselves. 



WAR'S LESSONS UP TO DATE 59 

The war has proved what a menace to peace 
these armaments had come to be. 

Pacifist effort was directed to lessening 
the danger of the conflicts to which inter- 
national anarchy gave rise, by allowing time 
for the momentary excitement of the masses 
and their leaders to die down, thus assuring 
a calm and rational discussion of the situation. 
Nothing is more favorable to an explosion of 
force than the excitement of impending con- 
flict. Machinery was established providing 
for dilatory treatment of all severe international 
disputes, before they could lead to an open 
conflict of arms. It was from such considera- 
tions that the First Hague Conference created 
the International Commission of Inquiry, 
which was further developed at the Second 
Conference. 

The provision referred to, in Article 9 of 
the "Convention for the pacific settlement 
of international disputes," reads, "In disputes 
of an international nature involving neither 
honor nor vital interests, and arising from a 
difference of opinion on points of fact, the 



60 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

contracting powers deem it expedient and 
desirable that the parties who have not been 
able to come to an agreement by means of 
diplomacy, should, as far as circumstances 
allow, institute an international commission 
of inquiry, to facilitate a solution of these 
disputes by elucidating the facts by means 
of an impartial and conscientious investiga- 
tion." 

It is easy to see how this provision has 
been qualified and weakened by the traditional 
spirit of disorganization. It concerns only 
"disputes involving neither honor nor vital 
interests." Each state is to define these 
terms for itself. Even then thev dared not 
recommend the method, but confined them- 
selves to "deeming" it "expedient and desir- 
able, " and did not consider its application 
except "as far as circumstances allow." 
These limitations are the concessions which 
the new public mind had to make to the old 
conceptions of diplomats at the Hague Con- 
ferences. 

But despite these limitations, the Conven- 



WAR'S LESSONS UP TO DATE 61 

tion has already had one great success. In 
the delicate Hull affair, when the departing 
Russian Baltic fleet fired on English fishing 
smacks (1904), when the war-spirit on the 
streets of London rose to fever-heat, a peaceful 
solution was attained by referring the matter 
to an International Commission of Inquiry, 
— simply because the excitement of the 
moment was thus allayed. There are of 
course some who will seek to minimize that 
occasion. Those who take the trouble to 
go through the daily papers of that time will 
realize that the dispute, concerning as it did 
both the "honor and the vital interests" of 
the participants, was considered very likely 
to lead to war. It aroused the public more, 
and seemed more serious, than the dispute 
which grew into the present war. 

The treaties which Mr. Bryan, then American 
Secretary of State, offered to all the countries 
of the world in 1913 are an extension of this 
idea of dilatory treatment. Contrary to the 
general belief, they were not arbitration 
treaties, but treaties for the "prevention of war. 



62 THE RESTORATION OF EUROTE 

The contracting parties pledged themselves 
to refer any dispute to an international com- 
mission of inquiry before going to war. This 
commission may postpone its report for a 
year. After it has reported, the states are 
free to decide whether they will go to war or 
settle the matter peacefully. 1 But it is quite 
clear that after a year's delay no dispute will 
lead to war. That is the fundamental pur- 
pose of those treaties. Thirty-four states 
have assented to them in principle, and at the 
end of 1914 the United States had signed such 
treaties with eighteen governments, among 
them the European countries, Great Britain, 

1 Article I of the Anglo-American treaty reads : 

"The High Contracting Parties agree that all disputes between 
them of every nature whatsoever, to the settlement of which previous 
arbitration treaties or agreements do not apply in their terms or are 
not applied in fact, shall, when diplomatic methods of adjustment 
have failed, be referred for investigation and report to a permanent 
International Commission, to be constituted in the manner prescribed 
in the next succeeding article ; and they agree not to declare war or 
to begin hostilities during such investigation and before the report 
is submitted." 

From Article 3 : 

" The report of the International Commission shall be completed 
within one year after the date on which it shall declare its investiga- 
tion to have begun, unless the High Contracting Parties shall limit or 
extend the time by mutual agreement." 



WAR'S LESSONS UP TO DATE 63 

France, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark and 
Holland. 

There can be no doubt that dilatory treat- 
ment of this sort could have settled the dispute 
which led to this war, had use been made of 
the machinery of the Hague Conventions 
established for that very purpose. But the 
provision of the Hague Conference in regard 
to a Commission of Investigation has remained 
a scrap of paper for the same reason which 
was responsible for the failure of the Hague 
Conventions in general — because the machin- 
ery was not supported by the will to use it. 
There was one other reason, to which I referred 
on page 23. The apparatus of armament had 
become so tremendously sensitive that, although 
created to preserve peace, it was so perfectly 
prepared for war that when a dispute reached 
its climax, a postponement even of a few 
hours was impossible. A few days' delay, 
even twenty -four hours' delay, would give the 
enemy an advantage that might never have 
been regained. That is why Austria-Hungary 
refused to extend the time allowed Serbia to 



64 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

answer her ultimatum, refused to take part 
in the Conference of Ambassadors proposed 
by Sir Edward Grey, and did not respond to 
the Serbian proposal to refer the dispute to 
the Hague ; and that is why Germany refused 
the similar proposal made by the Czar on the 
twenty-ninth of July, and allowed Russia 
but twelve hours to answer her ultimatum. 
Russia had begun to mobilize, and every 
German decision was dominated by the fear 
that if the Czar's proposals for pacific settle- 
ment were accepted, Russia would get the 
start and have the military advantage. This 
delicately balanced system of armament, this 
extreme "preparation for peace," actually 
led to war. 

Thus experience has confirmed our conten- 
tions that armament alone does not insure 
peace, and furthermore that the constant 
increase of armament is an actual menace to 
peace. Armament makes all the machinery 
created to secure peace a mere illusion. In 
contrast to the pacifist method of securing 



WAR'S LESSONS UP TO DATE 65 

peace by delay, the anarchical method of 
"insuring" peace by increasing armament 
makes rapid action imperative. 

The over-sensitive system of armament 
was not the sole cause of the war. No small 
part was played by the hope of anticipating 
increases planned by the enemies of Germany. 
The knowledge that the Russian land and 
sea forces were to be strengthened, and strate- 
gic railways built on her western border, and 
that France was about to reintroduce the 
three-year compulsory service, weakened op- 
position to war in Germany and prevented 
a peaceful settlement. It may have been 
the expectation of a relatively less favorable 
position as regards armament, quite apart 
from such immediate disadvantage as a delay 
would have brought, which made the respon- 
sible military leaders think it inadvisable 
further to postpone the conflict. 

How often has preparedness been praised 
as the surest guarantee of peace, as a cheap 
insurance premium against the losses of war ! 



66 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

The outbreak of the present war has proved 
that these sacrifices of strength and wealth 
were made to an illusion, that the armaments 
themselves inhibited rational means of adjust- 
ment; indeed, that the system of competitive 
armament inseparable from preparedness 
finally left no way out but war — to avoid 
which the whole system was supposedly 
established ! 

How can the expenditure of more such 
billions be justified when it is evident that 
all this preparation not only was unable to 
prevent this most fearful of all wars, but 
actually caused it? It can no longer be said 
that it was armament that kept Germany at 
peace forty-four years. It is a not a question 
of armament alone but of competition in 
armament. It did indeed postpone open 
war, but it only postponed it, and never for a 
single hour did it give us any real security. 
All through these four and forty years there 
has been the constant danger of war. We 
have never enjoyed true peace; only the 
sparse fruits of a very dangerous truce have 



WARS LESSONS UP TO DATE 67 

been ours. No reasonable person will de- 
mand that we disarm and stand defenceless. 
But we must learn the grave lessons of this 
war, that a peace secured by big guns is not 
enough, that means must be found to estab- 
lish a new system of international relation- 
ships not founded on the mere accumulation 
of instruments of war. That is one of the 
lessons which this war has already taught us, 
and it is not the least important. 

The world-war has confirmed another im- 
portant pacifist principle. It has demon- 
strated the ineffectiveness of attempts to 
humanize and regulate warfare. The pacifist 
doctrine has always been that force cannot 
be legalized, and that such a reversion to the 
primitive as war is incapable of humanization. 
It is just as impossible to limit the efficiency 
of instruments of destruction as to prescribe 
regulations for the manner in which an over- 
heated steam-boiler shall crack. It is an 
impossible attempt to change the inevitable 
sequence of cause and effect. As Eucken 
somewhere says, men sometimes wish the 



68 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

stones of their buildings to be soft, if they 
happen to fall on their heads. War suspends 
all the laws of morality, it sets aside the laws 
of society, and restores the primitive condi- 
tion of unrestricted lawlessness. At such a 
time there cannot be order. A condition of 
anarchy may be completely done away with, but 
it cannot be regulated. Many, not pacifists, 
who think that war is still indispensable, 
admit this. Again and again military men 
have told us that the greatest inhumanity 
in war is the greatest humanity, because it 
exhausts the enemy most quickly, thus hasten- 
ing peace and avoiding much sacrifice and 
misery. "There is no such thing as humane 
warfare. The purpose of every war is the 
physical destruction of the enemy." So said 
Dr. Dernburg, formerly Colonial Secretary, to 
a voter who asked him for material to refute 
certain accusations in connection with the 
war in Southwest Africa. 

It cannot be denied that some forbearance 
in war is both possible and necessary, and 
that protection of the prisoners and wounded 



WAR'S LESSONS UP TO DATE 69 

has saved many lives. But it is not always 
possible, nor can we expect that the existing 
rules will be obeyed without exception. Even 
in time of peace it is impossible to keep the 
brute instincts of some individuals within the 
bounds of law ; how much less is it possible 
in time of war, when such people can give their 
instincts free rein ! We do not want to abolish 
the Red Cross ; but we must not expect too 
much of it, nor content ourselves with it 
alone. True humanity consists in protecting 
human life and health from the dangers of 
war, not in making the consequences of those 
dangers more tolerable. Such endeavors are 
never more than a makeshift. They save 
some, but they cannot prevent others from 
perishing without help or care ; many wounded 
men and prisoners are killed by the hardships 
of the system. 

This is true of all the various attempts to 
regulate warfare. The sutTerings of the civil 
population, the destruction of public buildings 
and works of art, of private estates, the sinking 
of ships and their passengers, the use of hunger 



70 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

and fire as weapons, — all these which those 
who sought to humanize warfare had come to 
regard as things of the past, have, despite 
all the well-meant attempts to prevent them, 
been horribly common in this war. Such 
atrocities do not demonstrate unlimited 
cruelty inherent in human nature, but rather 
the simple impossibility of proceeding other- 
wise with instruments fashioned for that very 
purpose, instruments which cannot but be 
cruel. 

There are a number of reasons why atroc- 
ities beyond comprehension are more fre- 
quent in this than in previous wars. War 
was never before fought on so huge a scale, 
with such masses of men, or with such per- 
fected weapons. The destruction has inevita- 
bly been greater and more permanent. If 
the best heads in the world occupy them- 
selves for decades in devising the quickest 
and most effective means for destroying 
human life, human institutions and human 
property, something very perfect in the way of 
destruction is bound to follow. This war is 



WAR'S LESSONS UP TO DATE 71 

not qualitatively more inhumane than pre- 
vious wars ; but quantitatively its cruelty sur- 
passes them all and therefore it horrifies us. 
Furthermore, war was never before waged 
in sueh civilized regions. To the amount of 
destruction caused by the extension of the 
theatre of war and the effectiveness of its 
instruments is added the fact that the men 
opposing each other are very highly civilized 
and the region very highly cultivated. Never 
before was war waged so publicly. It makes 
a difference whether war be waged in Man- 
churia or Thrace, or in the very centre of 
European civilization. Europe is closer to 
us, both in space and in feeling, and the 
desperate cries of its inhabitants are listened 
to and comprehended as those from the remote 
parts of the earth which have suffered from 
war in recent years, were not. No, no ! 
War as such is not more cruel than in the past, 
but we are more affected by it because we 
ourselves have become more sensitive. 

If the ancient civilization of the peoples 
now at war is unable to modify the horrors 



72 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

and sufferings of the machine-made war of 
to-day, if the modern European cannot escape 
the compulsion to cruelty inherent in war, 
what success can we expect from these various 
rules and regulations in the future? It is all 
very well for carefully educated, well-clothed, 
highly moral gentlemen, sitting around a 
green table under the protection of the law, 
to discuss them. Safe in port it is easy to 
make regulations for the conduct of passengers 
in case of shipwreck. But we are not horrified 
if the affrighted crowd, in the moment of 
danger, when the ship is sinking, does not 
obey the rules. We explain the panic psycho- 
logically. And in time of war — an infinitely 
greater catastrophe — can we expect the con- 
scientious observance of rules made in time 
of peace? That would be to misunderstand 
human nature and the nature of war, whose 
express purpose it is to disregard the dictates 
of humanity. 

The men who codified the laws of war had 
more psychological insight than those in 
various countries who wax angry over their 



WAR'S LESSONS UP TO DATE 73 

violation. Any one reading with care the 
provisions of the Hague Conventions with 
regard to the laws of warfare on land and sea 
will observe that they were written less in the 
hope that they would really be obeyed than as 
a rather becoming decoration for our civiliza- 
tion. In no other way can those clauses be 
understood which retract in one paragraph 
what was said in the preceding ; those clauses 
which read "as far as is compatible with 
military necessity," "under certain circum- 
stances," "as far as is possible," etc. They 
disclose how well the authors were aware 
that practice would play havoc with their 
theory. They added those limitations only 
to save their own souls. 

The discussion at the Hague shows how 
conscious they were of the self-contradiction 
of the attempt to regulate warfare. In reply- 
ing to the American plea for the immunity of 
private property at sea one of the delegates, 
the representative of a small maritime country, 
said that the possibility of destroying com- 
merce in time of war was one element in the 



74 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

defence of small nations. It had boon called 
a relic of piracy: "That is true, just as it is 
true that war is nothing but organized murder. 
We retain this right only for the time when 
normal life has ceased. We simply cannot 
tie OUT hands at the very moment when jus- 
tice disappears to be replaced by force, when 
pity veils its eyes and inexorable brute force is 
supreme." That was an honorable admis- 
sion which lacked nothing in logic. At a 
time when by common consent force domi- 
nates, when everything depends upon force, 
regulations and restrictions cannot expect to 
be observed. They are mere decoration. 
Mankind, conscious that war is an unworthy 
institution incompatible with the demands of 
an enlightened age, has by such provisions for 
regulation and humanization only sought to 
deceive its awakening conscience. These 
provisions arc merely the fig-leaf which mankind 
demands after eating of the tree of knowledge. 
No more than a tig-leaf can cover the naked- 
ness of the body, can any number of Geneva 
and Hague Conferences humanize warfare. 



WAR'S LESSONS UP TO DATE 75 

Only the war could prove this. The lesson 
is of great importance. It will sharpen the 
sense of responsibility among those in power, 
and strengthen the demand for peace among 
the masses. War is a bestial institution, and 
he who would protect mankind from its evils 
must do more than attempt to regulate it; 
he must work for its abolition. 

All else is humbug I 

We must refuse to listen to those who say 
that the war has shown that international 
law is bankrupt. They err. International 
law has not failed, but merely the so-called laics 
of war, which were never truly law at all. 
For war is the cessation of law. True inter- 
national law is that law which human society 
has developed for its normal activity ; it rests 
upon the foundations of our civilization ; it 
has been created by reason for the promotion 
of organization. Only fools would give up 
such order for unfettered force, or would es- 
tablish a kind of law which, self-contradictory 
as it would be, would inevitably fail at the 
firing of the first shot. 



76 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

Another thing this war has taught ns is a 
clear recognition of the changed function of 
war as a political instrument. Many, judging 
from the European wars of the past, had been 
quite misled. There were still many people 
who thought of war as a short but rejuvenat- 
ing letting of blood, disturbing the peaceful 
course of human events for a time, but promis- 
ing an acceleration of progress in the future. 
The catch-phrase of a "fresh and merry" 
(frisch and frohlich) war is at last dead forever, 
and with it have gone all the beauty and 
romance of war. 

It is unfortunate that experimental proof 
was required to rid us of so outgrown a 
conception. The arithmetical proposition 
ought to have been enough. But we were 
too deep set in tradition and we did not 
want to get away from it. We have learned 
only a little of the real cost of this war, 
but there are enough data already at hand 
to convert those who still maintain so petty 
a conception of war and seek to deceive 
the people with it. The magic of military 



WAR'S LESSONS UP TO DATE 77 

romance is gone forever. The mountains 
of corpses, the legions of cripples, the 
one-armed, the one-legged, blind, infected, 
consumptive, those afflicted with heart dis- 
eases and the insane, and the smoking ruins 
already left behind by the war, the property 
destroyed, the capital and savings lost, and, 
not least, the bleeding hearts and shattered 
nerves, make such a mass of misery and 
despair that not even the most expert white- 
washers will ever again be able to conceal the 
facts. 

We were deceived. We believed that that 
which we call war to-day was the same as 
that which was called by the same name 
in days gone by, simply because it was un- 
chained in the same old way. Modern war 
is as incomparable to the knightly expedi- 
tions of past centuries as the explosion of a 
match to an eruption of Vesuvius. The 
instrument which man once controlled has 
grown beyond his control. He is no longer 
master, but is servant of a thing which, once 
set free, he cannot master. Clausewitz' defini- 



?S THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

Uod oi war as a continuation of politics, "but 
with different instruments," is no longer 

applicable. The instruments arc too expen- 
sive. War can no longer be described as a 
continuation of politics; it is an open admission 
of the bankruptcy of politics. 

This will be impressively evident when we 
come to view the present catastrophe as a 
whole. The things that will come to light 
will tell such a tale that the glorifiers of war 
will hardly dare again to ply their dangerous 
trade ; and if they do, their voices will be over- 
whelmed by the terrible burden of facts. 
They will hardly succeed in making new 
converts. Militarism has been dealt a blow 
from which it can never recover. The apostles 
of force will be silenced. 

The dream of romantic war is ended. The 
human earthquake of 1914 led to a fearful 
awakening. 

The technical lessons of the war are also 
important. Sorrowfully we pacifists noted 
with what surprise the new forms o( war were 
greeted. Half a generation ago Jean BlocJi, 



WAR'S LESSONS UP TO DATE 79 

one of our own movement, predicted most of 
these phenomena almost exactly as they are 
happening to-day, with only such differences 
as can be accounted for by the further techni- 
cal development of arms and transportation. 

Jean Bloch appeared before the public in 
the late nineties with his big six-volume book 
on war, in which he sought to prove that the 
revolution in military technique, and the 
economic and social evolution of Europe, had 
caused such changes that it was doubtful 
whether a war between the equally armed great 
powers of Europe would ever lead to any result. 

He showed that the rapid evolution of 
military technique made the experience of 
past wars useless, and that the revolutionary 
changes in munitions required a new science 
of tactics. The necessity of fortified trenches, 
transforming war into a prolonged siege, the 
superiority of the defence, the huge losses, the 
long duration of the battles, their indecisive- 
ness for the course of a campaign, and the 
unprecedented shock to economic life caused 
by the extraordinary length of the war, — all 



BO rHE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

those Bloch described in detail. He called 
attention to the vast extension of the battle- 
fields, to the resultant difficulties in the com- 
missary, to the insufficient provision for the 
wounded. He referred to the tremendous 
sacrifice of those huge battles, and described 

the future war as so sinister a thing that he 

doubted whether the nerves of civilised Euro- 
peans could bear the shook. From these 
premises he concluded we cannot yet verify 

his results - that the gigantic catastrophe of a 

modern war would be so- bloody and destruc- 
tive and the combatants would emerge from 
it so weakened that there would be no real 

victors or vanquished, and only the complete 

physical and economic exhaustion o( the com- 
batants would perforce put an end to hostili- 
ties. 

Bloch was certainly mistaken in many 

respects, especially as regards the supposed 
impossibility o( prolonged toleration o( eco- 
nomic disturbance. In respect to armaments 

and economic developments there was much 

that he. at the end of the past eentury. could 



WAR'S LESSONS UP TO DATE si 

not foresee. Bui he was right in the essentials; 
the present war has vindicated his teachings. 
Whether the war will end as he predicted, 
only the future can tell. It almost looks as 
it' he were right. The war has already taught 

US that si at os such as tin 4 groat powers of 

Europe, or allied groups of such states, cannot 
be forced to their knees according to the old 
recipe. This war will not end with a victori- 
ous conqueror dictating terms of peace to a 
vanquished opponent, as all tho belligerents 
at first expected. We have much to un- 
learn. In modern war there are no im- 
petuous charges; there are no hills whence 
tho general, seated astride a fiery charger, 
surveys the battle through a hold glass. 
The pictures of our schooldays are no longer 
true to life; and the end will be as different 
from tho storios. The immensity of the states 
at war entirely excludes tho possibility o( 
complete defeat. There will have to be a 
compromise in tho end and one which 

could have boon made much more cheaply 

before the war began. 



88 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

Bloch's intent ion was to make this chain of 
reasoning clear. He had no desire to stand 

in history as a soothsayer and prophet : he 
wished to be a monitor and to teach a method 
ot' international settlement different from the 
old, which seemed to him st> ineffective. His 
doctrine was not built on any new discoveries : 
he had simply collected the works of military 
authorities; but he drew conclusions from 
them as a sociologist instead of as a strategist. 
lie was little appreciated by his contempo- 
raries. The Hague Conferences were said to 
have been called as a result of his book, but 
he was unable to influence their negotiations 
as he desired. As an outsider he lectured in 
the evenings to the Hague delegates. In vain 
he called upon the governments not to believe 
or disbelieve him blindly, but to test his 
conclusions. In vain ! They preferred to be 
surprised fifteen years later by events which 
they might have learned from him to foresee. 
This war may bring recognition to our 
prophet, for it is proving in practice the truth 
of his theory. Europe has undertaken a 



WARS LESSONS UP TO DATE 88 

bloody investigation. Perhaps this pacifist, 
so little understood by his own contemporaries, 
will emerge the only victor in the war. Perhaps 
then a Europe, grown wiser by its wounds, 
will commemorate him by a bronze statue 
on one of its highest peaks. 

In the preceding chapter I spoke of some 
of the other lessons which the war has taught 
us. That the world has already become an 
economic unit, which if disturbed at one 
point, suffers in all parts of the organism; 
that the political interrelationships were al- 
ready so highly developed that — at least in 
Europe — wars could no longer be "localized"; 
that war in any case, wheresoever and by 
whomsoever it might be waged, is, since 
all suffer by it, a serious matter for every 
nation on earth — these things the history 
of the last few months has taught us. There 
is no need further to discuss them. At the 
conclusion of the hard struggle there will be 
still other and decisive lessons to be learned. 

When the war began we heard much of the 
need to unlearn and to relearn (umlerncn). 



M ruv RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

We urns t in the 

sensi phrase •■■ is Brsl use 

We must at las fto istom wirsdves 

is DO 

> il instrument i 
as its m isi wis nooq nfl , * 

or else m. ft, must be elimi- 

ted. 



CHAPTER IV 

The Treaty of Peace and Future Peace 

"Evert war ends in peace." — 

That is another of those aphorisms which 
are repeated parrotlike when they no longer 
contain an atom of truth. We have known 
for centuries that the earth moves around the 
sun; nevertheless we still speak in mediaeval 
terms of the "rising* 5 and the "setting" of 
the sun. Just as old and just as untrue is the 
saying that war ends in peace: but there is 
this difference, that the fundamental untruth 
of the latter phrase is not so generally under- 
stood as of that which Galileo exposed. It is 
a very dangerous phrase. Wars have never 
ended in true peace. They usually end with 
a treaty of peace that stops armed hostilities 
and introduces a condition of latent hostility, 
but which leaves the community of nations 
in just as primitive a condition as before. 

So 



86 r 1 1 E B E STORATION F E UROP E 



The disorganisation and national isolation 

persist ; when a treaty of peaee is signed with 
the usual eonrtesies. aente war is merely 
transformed into latent. As 1 have pointed 
out, that condition may have been quite 
tolerable when eaeh state was self-sntfieient. 
before the natural tendeney to interdepen- 
dence had made itself felt. But to follow the 
same old course to-day would be madness, and 
would mean destruction for the entire Euro- 
pean organism. This is not a war which ean 
be ended with a simple treaty of peaee. 
That which we eall war is only the final aet 
of a drama which has been convulsing Europe 
for a generation. It did not begin on the 
28th of July, 1914; it began decades ago. 
To-day it is disclosing the danger in which 
we have been living ; it has created intolerable 
conditions which are quite incompatible with 
the evolution of the soeiety of nations. The 
petty methods of the past are incompetent to 
overcome this state of things. 

It will not do to sign a treaty of peace 
which does nothing but stop the tlow of blood 



THE TREAT? OF PEACE s: 

and end the most obvious evils of anarchy, 
leaving everything otherwise as it was before. 
The task before us is to close a (earful period 

of human history. It can only be accom- 
plished by establishing a durable peace, a true 

peace, which shall transform international 
intercourse and set international relations on 
a new and better track. When, after all 
these sacrifices, we have at last recognised 
international anarchy for what it really is, 
we shall not allow the menace to continue. 
Thai perilous catchword according to which 
this bath of blood would automatically lead 
to peace, must be east aside. However pains- 
takingly a treaty be made, if it provides 
merely for altered boundary-lines and for 
indemnities, it is insufficient. It would not 
achieve that true peace at which we aim, and 
which humanity musi have. 

Instinctively the people and the govern- 
ments divine the real issue. A certain una- 
nimity o( purpose in the midst of the great 
conflict is clear. It is fearful to realize that 
all the people who arc fighting so bloodily arc 



88 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

fighting for the same end. They are all fighting, 
according to their own statements, for their 
right to existence and their future safety. 
Thai end, however, can only he atlained by 
organization. Neither subjugation nor the 
complete victory of one party over the other 
will ever bring peace and security to this 
tormented continent. 

Nevertheless each of the warring countries 
hopes lo achieve its purpose in this impossi- 
ble manner, and refuses to recognize the actual 
conditions of communal life. Each seeks to 
establish its own peace and its own security, 
whereas a genuine peace is possible only by 
common agreement, by the establishment of 
harmony; and national security is possible 
only when there is international cooperation. 

\a\<c the pursuer of fortune in the fairy-tale, 
l lie nations chase llu* will-o'-the-wisp of 
durable peace, and each hopes to win il for 
itself by force of arms and subjugation. The 
watchword "durable peace" is a promise of 
salvation to hundreds of millions on ilu* con- 
tinent of Europe to-day; but there are very 



THE TREATY OF PEACE 89 

few who clearly understand how it may be 
realized. Most of ns have a simple hope 
that it can be attained by another of those 
"treaties of peace" such as we have had in 
I he past, which have never yet laid the 
foundations of permanent peace but always 
contain the germs of the next war. We think 
to measure the permanence of that visionary 
future order by the amount of destruction and 
humiliation which we can visit upon our 
opponents. What blindness ! That was the 
method of the ancient Romans, who, at a 
time when the world was not yet interdepen- 
dent, sought to extend peace as far as their 
weapons could strike. That peace came to 
an ignominious end when other peoples dis- 
covered its secret and appeared on the scene 
with weapons just as strong. In an era of 
interdependence, when the states are forced 
to live together, these methods have become 
inadequate, in proportion as the world is 
smaller and weapons more effective. There 
is no such thing as a durable peace maintained 
by force, just as there can no longer be peace for 



90 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

one nation apart from the rest (Solofriede) ; 

there can be only one peace for all the nations, 
established upon justice to all. 

This is all so clear and simple that we are 
horrified at the illusion under which all the 

warring nations labor. There is a mutual 
desire to subjugate because there has been 
a mutual threat. Success is expected from 
the most perverted methods. They aim to 
seize as much as possible of the enemy's 
land, and to weaken him economically ; and 
on such a wavering foundation they all hope 
to build a permanent peace. They have 
learned that it is no longer possible to anni- 
hilate an enemy or to extirpate a nation of 
many million inhabitants ; but not one of 
them draws the right conclusion. They do 
not suspect that the consequence of the use 
of force for subjugation is rebellion by force; 
that to-day the most fearfully oppressed 
nation never gives up the struggle, and that 
even' use of force is therefore an element of 
disturbance, stimulating intrigue and revenge, 
and makes nothing less likely than peace and 



THE TREATY OF PEACE 91 

security. Force brings with it discord, hate 
and revolt. He who sows force, reaps war. 
Shall the old game begin again? Shall the 
nations be tormented anew by the revengeful 
passions o( oppressed and conquered peoples? 
Shall the game of armaments be renewed, 
and on a previously undreamt of scale? 
Shall all the achievements of human labor 
and intelligence, all the goods which were to 
bring happiness and comfort to mankind, be 
sacrificed to make more and more fearful 
and destructive weapons in a new and more 
angry competition of armaments? Shall the 
tension be so increased that the danger of 
explosion will be present every hour, so that 
Europeans will go to bed with the daily 
thought that the bloody business may recom- 
mence the next morning? Can we realize in 
what a panic humanity will live if the old 
system persists — more acute and threatening 
than ever before ? Who will feel any stimulus 
to earn, to save, to care for the future, when 
he knows that any hour this fearful drama 
may recur and must recur? Who but will 



92 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

fear to bring up children, to mould their 
character and to care for their future, it' we 
have a peaee which leaves US as before, in 
anarchy, but in deeper anarchy? 

Such would be the "durable peaee" which 
a single nation might establish by the annexa- 
tion of territory and the economic exhaustion 
of the enemy. It would be a world incon- 
ceivably full of fear if after this convulsive 
struggle we should content ourselves with a 
treaty of peaee which was a mere interrup- 
tion of hostilities and did not lay the founda- 
tion of a genuine international organization. 
If such be the result of this struggle, which, we 
were told, was inevitable because the previous 
condition of international anarchy had be- 
come intolerable, that condition would by 
contrast seem a paradise. Everything will 
be sharper, more deadening and more destruc- 
tive, Wealth aggregating hundreds o( billions 
will have been destroyed. Heavy tax-burdens 
will be necessary, and they will hamper re- 
cuperation. These, and the limitless hate and 
the embittered feeling of revenge, will make 



THE TREATY OF PEACE OS 

commercial progress slow and painful, and 
the production of goods will suffer from a 
limited consumption. Bleeding wounds will 
prevent international cooperation and will 
give rise to suspicions which will make it 
seem the last word of wisdom to renew and 
increase the competition in armaments, whose 
burdens the weakened peoples will be less 
than ever able to bear. The enormous in- 
juries which private property has suffered in 
this war, the lawlessness which has befallen 
the stranger everywhere, the horrors which the 
civil population has had to endure, will 
increase the previous insecurity and create a 
state of permanent panic which finally will 
limit all progress and make any civilization a 
doubtful possibility. 

There is perhaps one consolation in this 
desperate prospect. It is so intolerable that 
it must force men to rebel, to seek some 
release from the afflictions which would be 
the logical products of a peace made according 
to the old models. 

There must be a change. This explosion, 



94 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

which has so clearly exposed the instability of 
the condition in which we have been living-, 
must lead to a complete transformation of 
international relations, must achieve a genu- 
ine and secure peace. The world-war must 
destroy its own source, international anarchy, 
and result in international organization, in a 
rational state-system. That which is filling 
our lives with sorrow to-day shall mould the 
world anew, and shall accelerate the process 
of organization. 

There is much to encourage us in this 
belief. Never before were the horrors of 
war so universal. Previous wars were waged 
between two opponents or at most between 
small groups. The other nations took no 
part, or were bystanders who actually bene- 
fited from them. This war comprehends 
the whole world — not only the belligerent 
nations, but the others as well, for they 
also suffer from it. The interests of all 
mankind are involved ; and the common will 
of the whole world will awaken to put an end 
to a system that could bear such fruit. This 



THE TREATY OF PEACE 95 

very catastrophe has shown to what extent 
the foundations for a community of civilized 
nations had already been laid. That a rela- 
tively unimportant conflict of two states 
inevitably grew into a world-war is sufficient 
evidence of the existence of that interdepen- 
dence which should properly have led to world- 
organization rather than to world-war. The 
people, and with them their governments, will 
realize that wars waged on such a scale can 
no longer be made a part of their political 
calculations, and that accordingly another 
method of settlement will have to be devised. 
When the bill for this outburst is presented, 
they will recognize, what they refused to 
accept on the assurance of the pacifists, that 
the method of war is no longer competent or 
serviceable. 

How can genuine peace and international 
organization be achieved? It is naturally 
hard to answer this question when we do not 
yet know T under what conditions the govern- 
ments of the warring nations will meet to 
discuss the cessation of hostilities. As I said 



96 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

in the previous chapter, I think it practically 
impossible that we will have to reckon with 
a complete victory of one group of powers. 
There will hardly be a victor in the old sense of 
the word. The new situation will have to be 
the product of a compromise. At the most 
the group of allies which have the more favor- 
able position will be able to win some slight 
advantages. No one will be in a position to 
dictate the terms of peace. 

The great question is whether the govern- 
ments will place the interests of the future 
and the necessity of general security above 
the immediate advantages to individual 
nations in the bitter struggle which, when 
the battlefields are silent, will be waged across 
the green table. Will those who are convoked 
to end the war appreciate the significance of 
their task? The same old diplomats, or at 
least the same old system of diplomacy as 
that which was unable to remedy the previous 
international anarchy or to prevent its explo- 
sion in war, will be summoned. There may 
well be doubt whether the events of the war 



THE TREATY OF PEACE 97 

have so broadened their vision that they are 
capable of establishing that redeeming system 
of international organization which alone 
can firmly establish lasting peace. 

Therefore I think it important to look for- 
ward to two separate conferences, the first to 
attend to the cessation of hostilities by a so- 
called "treaty of peace," the second to guar- 
antee a genuine peace for the future by the 
foundation of a new European international 
organization. The separation should be in 
time as well as in function. The liquidation 
of war must precede the establishment of 
peace, and for various reasons a provisional 
organization must precede the final. 

True peace cannot be established by the 
old discredited diplomacy of the warring 
nations. It is essential that the representa- 
tives of the neutral nations of Europe and of 
the United States take part in it. This will 
hardly be possible in the immediate settle- 
ment of the war, as the combatants would 
object to any interference in a matter which 
concerns them alone. But in the establish- 



98 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

merit of the future world-order the nations 
which were not immediate participants in 
the war, but were nevertheless affected by it, 
will have a right to share. Thus in such a 
second stage of the work of peace there would 
be a greater chance to effect the reorganiza- 
tion of international relations in a modern 
spirit. 

Furthermore, not until after the war will 
European public opinion attain its old free- 
dom. It has been limited among the neu- 
trals who have had to be so cautious about 
their neutrality, as well as among the com- 
batants. If we are in earnest in our endeavor 
to mould the future, we cannot dispense with 
our most powerful and effective instrument, 
public opinion. 

It is no less important to remember 
that not until the war is well past will its 
real damage be evident and all the data 
be at hand. Such facts will help us in the 
reorganization of the future, and we can- 
not afford to dispense with their assistance. 
Such a task as the reorganization of the Euro- 



THE TREATY OF PEACE 99 

pean state-system will require very thorough 
and therefore long deliberation. Were it to 
be undertaken when the immediate issues of 
the war were being settled, it would be dan- 
gerously hurried. For the disorder of war to 
continue and the armies to remain in their 
positions until the last formula for future 
organization was found and the last name 
signed, would create an intolerable situation 
which inevitably would finally lead to a fatal 
abbreviation of the discussions. 

Despite the separation of the two confer- 
ences in function and in time, certain things 
must be demanded of the former. Its first 
task is of course to end the war ; but it must 
also pave the way for the second undertaking. 
It would be small comfort to humanity to 
postpone the establishment of permanent 
peace, if at the end of the war a situation 
should be created which imperilled the success 
of that second conference. Real statesman- 
ship and wisdom will be required. We can 
look for some help to the logic of events, 
an influence which will be more powerful 



100 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

after the war. The settlement should avoid 
any humiliation of either group, or its economic 
paralysis or exhaustion, and should lay the 
foundation for the congress that is to follow. 
Further, this second conference, which will be 
composed of both combatants and neutrals, 
must have the right to abrogate or extend the 
provisions of the previous treaty. The power 
of all Europe and America standing behind 
this conference will be sufficient to secure that. 
The exercise of this power should not be diffi- 
cult in view of the moral pressure it can bring 
to bear and of its purpose of securing the 
general welfare. 

It has been proposed that the task of estab- 
lishing peace be referred to a Third Hague 
Conference to be called immediately after the 
treaty of peace is signed. I do not agree. 
The Hague Conferences include all the nations 
of the world ; to refer the further organiza- 
tion of Europe to all of them would be a mis- 
take. Outside of Europe the United States 
alone really belongs to the European group. 
Furthermore, the Hague Conferences have 



THE TREATY OF PEACE 101 

always laid their chief emphasis on the regula- 
tion of war, and their bond of union has per- 
force been too weak. Thus they are not well 
adapted to the function of founding a European 
system or of securing permanent peace. The 
new organization that such a system would 
create would lay the foundation necessary 
for the Hague tribunals to attain their true 
value. It is better not to refer this matter 
to the Hague Conference. We must remem- 
ber that the organization of Europe will not 
immediately be completed by the mere treaty 
of peace. It will be only a beginning, a mere 
foundation. Its extension will be the unre- 
mitting task of decades. 

Friends of humanity, turning sadly from a 
Europe thrilled with bloody hallucinations, 
are revived by the vision of these things that 
are to be. The hour will come when their 
work will begin. And we will continue to 
hope that it will achieve its purpose, that it 
will end a tragic period of human history 
and give birth to a happier. 



CHAPTER V 

International Problems 

Since the beginning of the war the thought 
of millions has turned to the future. The 
number of pacifists has therefore increased. 
Many who were formerly inaccessible to the 
teachings of pacifism have, as a consequence of 
the dramatic instruction of the war, accepted 
it. Pleasing as this is, it has certain draw- 
backs. From these newcomers in our move- 
ment an ocean of well-meant but often con- 
fusing and misleading plans and advice is 
poured out upon the public. Inevitably those 
to whom these ideas are new, who are for the 
most part ignorant of the accomplishments of 
the past, and often unaware that for decades 
a great movement has concerned itself with 
the development of these very ideas, make the 
mistakes of beginners and become mere 
dilettantes. Because of the ill-will of our 

102 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 103 

opponents and their influence upon the 
public — completely ignorant of pacifism, any- 
thing and everything is accepted and con- 
demned as the product of our teachings. This 
lowers the credit of scientific pacifism. It is 
the penalty of popularity. The existing or- 
ganizations of the movement will have to 
act as a clearing-house and reject amateurish 
ideas which really retard the progress of 
pacifism. 

Very much the same ideas which moved 
people fifty or sixty years ago and made the 
peace movement appear a sentimental dream, 
are reemerging to-day. Suggestions which 
were long ago cast among the Utopias pre- 
tentiously reappear. We hear again the song 
of the " United States of Europe " which Victor 
Hugo and Garibaldi used to sing; arbitra- 
tion courts are recommended as a universal 
panacea, and to enforce their decrees, the 
apparently simple recipe of an international 
police is urged. These well-meaning dilet- 
tantes lack the fundamental conceptions of 
pacifism. They do not know the difference 



104 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

between latent war and true peace. They fall 
into the most grotesque phantasies. They 
think that it is merely a question of the form 
of agreement which has led humanity astray. 
They "surprise" us with model treaties 
worked out to the smallest detail. They 
fail to note that it is the will which most 
governments have lacked — the will to Law, 
the will to submit to such agreements, and 
the far-sightedness to see their value. Their 
primitive point of view makes them miss the 
salient point. They offer us formulas, think- 
ing that humanity is bleeding because it 
could not discover the secret of their com- 
position. They do not suspect that formu- 
las are merely unimportant accessories. A 
beautiful treaty for world-organization could 
be made in twenty -four hours, if only the will 
were there to give it life and to enforce it. 

It is characteristic of political dilettan- 
teism that it misunderstands the process 
of social evolution. It thinks that social 
organs, like technical, can be made deduc- 
tively. It seeks to construct a new form of 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 105 

international community life in the same 
manner as one builds a machine. Such 
efforts are vain and Utopian. 1 Only from 
living embryos can social organisms be de- 
veloped, cultivated and improved ; they can- 
not deliberately be created out of nothing. 
The role of the social reformer is that of a 
breeder, not of an inventor. In this we see 
the dilettanteism of those social carpenters 
who would attempt to ignore the slow process 
of evolution and attain at once the final goal 
which soars before them. Such pacifists are 
dangerous, for their mistakes strengthen our 
opponents and cast discredit upon more se- 
rious programmes. It is therefore necessary 
to refer to these well-meant but nevertheless 
harmful efforts which are now attracting an 
unusual degree of public attention in con- 
nection with the great world-wide movement 
to safeguard humanity against a return to 
barbarism. 

It is consoling to remember that Utopias 

1 See my "Critique of Social Utopias" in my "Handbuch der 
Friedensbewegung, " 2d edition, vol. 1, p. 117. 



106 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

never endure, and in the end are always 
wrecked by their own instability. If, however, 
we can hasten their end by enlightenment, we 
avoid an unnecessary waste of energy. So it 
is with especial satisfaction that we note that 
immediately after the outbreak of the war, 
new organizations were founded in various 
countries under the leadership of experienced 
peace workers. They have set themselves 
the task of collecting suggestions for the 
settlement of the immediate problems into a 
programme looking toward the further evolu- 
tion of the natural process of organization. 
The old centres of the movement have also 
worked out similar programmes and offered 
them for general discussion. The demands 
and programmes of the English Union for 
Democratic Control, the Dutch Anti-Oorlog- 
raad, the Swiss Committee for the Study 
of the Foundations of a Permanent Treaty of 
Peace, the Interparliamentary Bureau, the 
Council of the International Peace Bureau, 
and various other old and new national organ- 
izations in Europe and in America, seeking 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 107 

to serve public opinion with outlines for the 
discussion of the great world-problems, stand 
in pleasant relief to the organized and un- 
organized dilettanteism which is so current. 

There are all sorts of problems having to do 
with the extension of internationalism, which 
we ought to test and discuss in detail. 

It is important that there be no compulsion </ 
in this organization of the nations. It is 
illogical to think compulsion necessary, or to 
believe international cooperation inconceivable 
without external force. That which was 
essential in founding the nations need not 
necessarily have the same importance for the 
future state-system. Here compulsion be- 
comes an actual hindrance. Coherence in 
such a system can be maintained by the inter- 
est of the parts in the existence of the whole. 
This interest will of course develop only 
gradually, but it will grow as the organization 
grows. The more developed the organism, 
the greater will be the advantage to the parti- 
cipants, and the greater their interest in its 
preservation. That is a surer bond than 



108 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

mere compulsion. The greater tenacity of 
self-interest is clear even in such recent 
amalgamations as the German and British 
Empires. Even the experiment tried since 
1906 under the influence of the United States 
and the great republics of South America, of 
creating a state-system out of the Central 
American nations, which were formerly con- 
tinuously at war, seems to be succeeding. 
It is a mistake always to look upon the 
United States of America as a model for 
Europe. Different historical developments 
demand different treatment. At most we look 
forward to an association of the states of Eu- 
rope, in which self-interest, not compulsion, 
produces and maintains association. The 
federations of the past have all rested on com- 
pulsion. Either they were formed under the 
influence of some external force which impelled 
the states to union, or of one state which, 
having assumed leadership over a group, com- 
pelled the others to join with it. The essen- 
tial characteristic of the super-state is not the 
suspension of sovereignty in the individual 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 109 

states, but its utilization in the interests of 
the whole. My formula for a European 
state-system therefore would be: "The ex- 
change of individual power for mutual obli- 
gations." 

The nearest model for Europe is the 
Pan-American system, which involves a sort 
of cooperative union (Zweckverband) of the 
twenty-one sovereign American republics. 
I shall discuss the "Cooperative Union of 
Europe" in the next chapter. The many 
plans now emerging for local European eco- 
nomic unions are of this same type. But it 
would be a mistake to limit a European system 
to a part of the continent. Inevitably a 
second would arise, and the disorder, although 
limited, would not be eliminated. As a 
transition stage such a local economic union 
would indeed be an advance ; but a further 
stage of organization is already possible if 
only we attend to the pressing needs of the 
time and do not let ourselves be too much 
influenced by the bitternesses of the moment. 
Even Europe is too small an area for a ser- 



110 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

viceable organization. The interests of man- 
kind embrace the whole earth. World organ- 
ization in the sense referred to is no longer a 
Utopia; why then should we be content to 
organize only a part of Europe ? 

Among the most immediate of the inter- 
national problems which have to do with 
this reorganization is the transformation of 
European diplomacy. It has often been 
pointed out that diplomacy has changed little 
since the time of Cardinal Richelieu. This 
is very significant in view of the new tasks 
which confront it. The outbreak of this war 
made it clear that diplomacy had become a 
danger and that its reformation from tip to 
toe was a necessity. No thinking person 
will assert that ten or six or perhaps only three 
persons should decide whether millions are 
to have their heads cut off or not. A system 
that maintains such a possibility is not fit 
for our age. And the fact that there are still 
diplomats who are willing to accept such a 
responsibility is sufficient evidence of the 
untenability of the system. Only the con- 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 111 

sciousness that no accounts will have to be 
rendered to the people whose business they 
manage, or that those accounts will never be 
audited, can give present-day diplomats the 
courage to accept such a responsibility. In 
this age of complete publicity their trade, on 
which the happiness of generations and em- 
pires is so often dependent, is secret. They 
have no rebuke to fear but that of history; 
and that will not bother them until this 
earthly pilgrimage is done. They tell us 
that it is in the people's interests that diplo- 
matic negotiations be conducted in secret. 
But the people do not wish that secrecy; 
they would prefer to resign an advantage 
which may compel them blindly to risk their 
lives. The complexity of the modern world 
makes publicity an indispensable condition, 
the omission of which is disastrous. 

Secrecy is not the only danger of diplomacy. 
It is dominated by a spirit which would do 
honor to mediaeval chivalry. Any one who 
reads the diplomatic white papers published 
at the beginning of the war will observe with 



112 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

disgust this knightly relic of a vanished age. 
In those critical eleven days of European his- 
tory the lives and happiness of millions were 
at stake, and the diplomats, coldly smiling, 
refused to discuss this matter or that, directly 
or at all. They preferred detours to direct 
negotiations; they refused peaceful methods 
of settlement for reasons of etiquette, or with 
an irrefutable reference to that idol of their 
cult, Prestige. The Moloch of the old sagas 
never devoured so many human beings as this 
modern idol. It is the proud achievement of 
his priesthood that, treating him in their 
secret negotiations with unprecedented respect, 
they have made his image seem alive, and 
have made it an influence in our age of 
machinery and of world-revolutionizing ideas. 
This is not the only idol which is supported 
and fed with human bodies. There is the 
antiquated conception of sovereignty, to which 
diplomacy gives an interpretation which long 
ago ceased to be inherent in it. A state is 
sovereign over its members, for whom it 
exercises sovereignty, when it is called upon 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 113 

to act for them. But that does not imply 
immovability, or a sheer iron inflexibility 
utterly opposed to the nature of the present- 
day world, in which no state could exist for 
an hour without reciprocal limitations and 
concessions. Modern diplomats use sover- 
eignty as a bulwark behind which they hide 
when there is no rational justification for 
their actions. 

The diplomats know very well why they 
wish these idols respected. They find pro- 
tection behind them, and their work is thus 
facilitated. We pacifists, who are trying to 
free humanity from its self-imposed burden, 
are often accused of playing all around the 
busy world instead of dealing with plain hard 
facts. That would be no accusation to the 
diplomats who control the destinies of Europe 
to-day. They do not have to bother with 
realities. If an obstacle they cannot over- 
come is in their way, they let the people split 
their skulls about it. For they must guard 
the idol of "prestige" and the dogma of 
"sovereignty," and the old conception of war 



114 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

as a continuation of politics, if indeed "with 
other instruments." They, who are the real 
Utopians, because they are not compelled to 
deal with realities, are considered wise heads 
and "practical politicians" because they use 
that pons asinorum which mankind still calls 
"other instruments of diplomacy." The 
desire to end insanity is called Utopianism ; 
to act insanely is statesmanlike wisdom. 

The world-war has shown the failure of 
such statesmanlike wisdom. An institution 
which can have such consequences can no 
longer enjoy the confidence of the peoples 
at whose cost the game is played and lost. 
It must be changed. We have no need of 
caste-diplomacy. Only such men as are 
already eminent in other fields, be it as 
scholars or as engineers or agriculturists or 
merchants or teachers, should be called to 
negotiate between nations. The essential 
condition for so important an office must 
no longer be noble blood or high patronage. 
A committee at least of the national assembly, 
in critical times the entire national assembly, 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 115 

should cooperate in all negotiations with 
foreign governments or their representatives. 
Never again should treaties which have not re- 
ceived parliamentary indorsement be binding. 

In some such way the system must be 
changed. There is nothing in the life of 
nations more outgrown and more dangerous. 
Something adapted to our age must replace it. 

Closely related to the wretched system of 
European diplomacy is the system of alliances 
which has grown out of it, which has assisted 
to maintain international anarchy and has 
hastened its final collapse. Here again diplo- 
macy has displayed its ignorance of the real 
conditions of the age. How often have the 
diplomats, on both sides of the European 
camp, represented these close alliances as the 
guardians of European peace ! They paid no 
heed to the course of events by which, so long 
as international anarchy persisted, every pro- 
tective measure was transformed into a 
menace, and national defences were kneaded 
into huge menacing machines, which in the 
end left Europe in permanent insecurity and 



116 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

in danger of destruction. In describing the 
events which led to these alliances, I suggested 
that a dim suspicion that the salvation of 
humanity would be found in association, 
found its half -fulfilment in this system. That 
incomplete association was in fact a certain 
protection against hasty wars. The indi- 
vidual state was no longer master of its own 
decisions, but had to receive the assent of its 
allies before it could embark upon a war. 
Since wars affect different states differently, 
and the consent of the most reluctant must 
be given, a certain automatic security was 
achieved. I regarded the allies as natural 
mediators. Several instances in recent years 
have corroborated this view. But finally the 
system failed, and the anarchical character 
of the alliance system had its way. The in- 
completeness of that very system of alliances 
which, consciously and deliberately carried 
to its logical conclusion, would have given 
Europe complete security, caused a relatively 
unimportant conflict to grow into a world- 
conflagration. 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 117 

It was the alliance system which gave a 
new impulse to competition in armament 
and so enhanced the danger which it origi- 
nally sought to avoid. But its most danger- 
ous product was an atmosphere of hate 
and distrust, which cultivated militarism, 
hindered economic progress, and made life 
in recent years quite intolerable. There is 
but one hope left, that the conflagration 
caused by this dangerous kind of "protection" 
will destroy it to the last ash. The old sys- 
tem of rival alliances, each seeking only to 
strengthen itself by the inclusion of other 
states, will have to end after the war. If the 
allied states themselves do not end it, then the 
neutrals, fellow-sufferers in the war, who 
have had quite sufficient experience of what 
the Colossus means, will see to it — and their 
influence after the war will surely not be small 
— that these menacing alliances cease to 
play a role. 

Alliances cannot be ended by a simple 
decree. It is of no use to forbid them. 
Even after the war there will be no power 



118 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

strong enough to carry out such a decree. 
Even within the nations it will be difficult 
to combat the evil, for only a very powerful 
state would undertake a parliamentary decree 
to enter no alliances. The others will refrain 
from alliances only when to do so has become 
the general rule ; and that will happen only 
when the method of common action in the 
work of restoration is so far developed that 
the nations find in it a real substitute for the 
poor system of individual alliances. That 
is not so difficult as it seems. It is only a 
matter of a second step following the first. 
The Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente 
would be replaced by a European Alliance. 
Let no one protest that the hatred between 
the two camps would prevent this. Hate is 
not a political reality. It is merely a discovery 
of diplomacy, which creates popular moods in 
order to cite them as justification for its own 
errors. Enduring antagonisms exist only in 
phantasy; there indeed they are carefully 
cultivated ! The present allies 1 have all 

x This was written early in 1915. — Tr. 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 119 

waged bitter wars on each other in the course 
of the past century, and almost all the present 
opponents have been allies in some previous 
war. That does not prevent former enemies 
from standing "shoulder to shoulder" to-day, 
nor the former allies from fighting each other. 
Already we in Germany hear talk of the possi- 
bility of an alliance with one or another of 
the powers with whom we are at present in 
bloody combat. There is nothing real to 
prevent the substitution of a European Alli- 
ance for the separate alliances of to-day. 

The fact that a general European Alliance 
need not be political at all, indeed would 
have no reason to be so, makes such a step 
easier. If all the nations should unite, there 
would be no occasion to direct their energies 
against any other state — unless it be an 
extra-European constellation. The political 
aspect would cease to exist, and with it our 
greatest obstacle would be overcome. A 
general European Alliance would not have 
the menacing character of the alliances of the 
past, and would be far more helpful in eco- 



120 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

nomic and social life. Such an agreement 
would doubtless have its effect upon the polit- 
ical life of the participating states and secure 
more real protection than the present-day 
so-called "protective" alliances possibly 
could. It would also create an atmosphere 
in which the institutions of the Hague could 
develop into that which they were intended 
to be. The Hague Conferences would finally 
be vivified, and, supported by the will of the 
organized world, would become effective. 

Perhaps the most pressing international 
problem is that of over-armament and its 
gradual alleviation. It is difficult because it 
cannot be solved directly but must be dealt 
with through its underlying causes. Arma- 
ment is the substitute for order in the prevail- 
ing international disorder. It is supposed 
to defend the body politic just as armor 
protected the individual in the days of intra- 
national lawlessness. But just as armor was 
dropped as soon as peace within the nation 
brought personal security, so armaments will 
disappear, or at least be decreased, in propor- 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 121 

tion as international organization does away 
with international anarchy and achieves na- 
tional security for its members. The diffi- 
culty of the problem vanishes when we un- 
derstand this indirect method of treatment. 
This does not imply that in the face of the 
fearful burden of armaments we are to fold 
our hands and fatalistically await the evo- 
lution of international organization. In 
Chapter II I pointed out that the ruinous 
and futile competition of armaments was 
created by anarchy and in turn deepened it; 
indeed that this delirious competition was 
finally a not inconsiderable cause of the 
explosion. We must, therefore, not be con- 
tent to attack the root of the evil by eliminat- 
ing its known causes : we must treat the 
symptom as well ; for it is constantly becom- 
ing more difficult to cure. This is especially 
necessary since after the war the replacement 
of armament will give a new incentive to 
competition in the newest and most effective 
weapons. The experiences of the war will 
give a dangerous stimulus to inventors. 



122 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

Furthermore, the menace of armaments does 
not consist in their existence or in their size 
alone, but also in the manner of their disposi- 
tion and in their mobility. In one way or 
another, a general and simultaneous reduc- 
tion is already possible. Here again joint 
action is an indispensable condition. Isolated 
action cannot be expected of any one. Finally, 
a real international control must be looked 
for. International control of armaments is 
no longer Utopian. If thereby the possi- 
bility of a surprise attack could also be 
eliminated — an attempt which at best has 
but small chance of succeeding, then the 
nations would have this even more valu- 
able security in the bargain. 

The reasonable suggestion is often made 
that the armament-trade be taken over by the 
state, or at least conducted under its very 
close control. There can be no doubt that 
the impulse to competitive armament is 
largely due to the private manufacture of 
armament, or at least is stimulated and 
encouraged by it. The intrigues of these 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 123 

huge firms are dangerous not only in that they 
overburden the economic strength of the 
population, but also on account of their 
tremendous resources, and of their interna- 
tional connections, which they use to devise 
and sharpen controversies. They create the 
atmosphere which is most favorable to their 
profits. If the governments manufactured 
their own arms and ammunition, these dis- 
turbing machinations would for the most 
part disappear. The export of munitions 
would then be limited ; and thus nations 
would no longer have to increase their arma- 
ment to protect themselves against countries 
which they had themselves supplied from 
their own ammunition factories. The nation- 
alization of the manufacture of armaments 
would greatly facilitate international control 
of armaments, and would pave the way for 
their limitation. 

Another crying problem of international 
fellowship which must be brought nearer to a 
solution immediately after the war, is that 
of the press. 



124 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

Who is there who, for years before the war 
as well as in that critical July week, and in the 
dark days since, has not turned away with 
inner shame and open indignation from the 
performances of that institution which so 
completely dominates our modern life ? 

The fact that there is in every country a 
decent press controlled by men conscious of 
their duty to the community, simply serves 
to emphasize the general wretchedness of the 
situation. We are not here concerned with 
that respectable press, conscious as it is of 
its duty, whatever political or national stand- 
point it may represent. But of those poison 
factories, those gas-bomb batteries, those 
gangs of rogues and tavern gamblers who ply 
their unholy trade in broad daylight, who 
deceive and defile mankind, slyly pouring 
the poison of their baseness into heart and 
head, whose representatives nevertheless pass 
for honorable men and pose as benefactors in 
white vests — of that press we must speak. 

The inadequacy of diplomacy and the 
burden of armaments have never done human- 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 125 

ity so much harm as has that press. Rank 
with poison, it grows beneath the very tree of 
freedom which signifies the deliverance of 
mankind from the chains of authority. For 
decades it has excited peoples against one 
another, has deceived them about each other 
and has misrepresented the attitude and 
intentions of them all; it has awakened and 
constantly cultivated every low instinct, and 
at the same time with hellish conscientious- 
ness it has blocked the path of those ideas 
and efforts which might have enlightened 
and pacified mankind. It sowed hate, dis- 
trust and scorn, stirred the wild lust for 
blood and plunder, until finally it could blow 
the grand halloo and satisfy its instincts of 
profit in the flames of world-calamity. All 
this has happened and is still happening 
under the mask of patriotism, as a "service 
to the fatherland"; but all the while the 
greedy hands behind snatch up the profits of 
the trade in human beings. 

That press is sufficiently well-known. Its 
owners and their assistants, and the titles 



126 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

of the papers, are named with indignation. 
There are countries where people have gone so 
far as publicly to denounce these millionnaire 
owners as accomplices in the war, and to 
point to the mountains of dead as the founda- 
tions of such fortunes. But those big men 
known to every one do not stand alone. There 
is the legion of the little, of the infinitely little, 
who taken together are dangerous indeed; 
who, because of their circulation and adapta- 
bility to local circumstances, carry the poison 
into the most remote villages. 

I need not go into details to show how this 
press works, how it spreads its poison, or 
how it caricatures the spiritual vision of man- 
kind and discredits all the achievements of 
the human spirit in progress toward interna- 
tionalism. Mediaeval darkness is artificially 
produced with the most advanced instruments 
of modern times. It is a case of Ghengis 
Khan with a telegraph instrument. De- 
tailed description is superfluous, for we all 
know the evil from our own experience. 
The phenomena attendant on the war have 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 127 

shown it to be a world-evil more dangerous 
than all the infernal machines which are 
preying on humanity on land, on and under 
the sea, and in the air. No thinking person 
will any longer dispute that this press is the 
worst obstacle in the way of permanent 
peace, real or so-called. 

Hence we may hope that as one of the first 
steps in the restoration of Europe something 
will be done to free us from this unworthy 
tyranny. Experience will teach us what in- 
struments are best adapted. All must be tried. 
Since it is an international evil, much may be 
expected from cooperative international ac- 
tion. It is doubtful, however, whether legis- 
lative measures can accomplish much. But 
we have learned how to suppress evils 
like white slavery, pornographic literature 
and the sale of spirituous liquors, by inter- 
national legislation ; and we can attempt it 
here, too. In this way the worst grievances 
can be eliminated. But that would be far 
from enough. The most effective method 
seems to me to be thorough enlightenment of 



128 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

the public, a task in which the decent press 
can cooperate. Gradually the ground can 
be cut from under the offenders. To boycott 
such papers and their publishers would 
certainly be very effective. Respectable 
papers might assist by refusing to have any- 
thing to do with such associates, and by care- 
fully and obviously going a different road. 
Much might be accomplished by a voluntary 
international enterprise to name, brand and 
boycott such sheets. Anything that seems 
hopeful must be tried. The essential is, to 
do something. Humanity, which has armed 
itself to meet pest, cholera, diphtheria, tuber- 
culosis and cancer, will surely find the proper 
weapon to use against the jingo press. 

One of the chief conditions for the restora- 
tion and intelligent extension of the European 
community of nations will be the rapid and 
successful removal of the moral rubbish which 
the havoc of the world-war will leave behind. 
There will be other weapons beside those of 
steel to be silenced. The weapons of the 
mind, which have caused just as much devas- 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 129 

tation as have the Mausers and the shrapnel, 
must also come to rest. 

The outbreaks of hate which have occurred 
on both sides in this war were simply another 
kind of weapon. They must not be allowed 
to fight on when the cannon are silenced. 
Just as the mines will be removed from the 
mouths of the rivers and from the seacoasts, so 
the bombs of hate must be gathered up. Hate is 
the propagandist method of the apostles of 
force and the imperialists. Only in an at- 
mosphere of hate and suspicion can they 
justify and carry out their ideas. When hos- 
tilities have ceased, the task of destroying 
hate must be begun immediately, and with 
energy and circumspection. 

We cannot, as was done after 1871, trust 
to the automatic disappearance of hate. We 
do not want to wait until the generations 
that have known the war are dead. The 
restoration of Europe must not be so long 
postponed. The convulsion was so mighty, 
the destruction so tremendous, that delay 
might make the evil incurable. The best 



130 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

chance for salvation is in losing no time. 
Ours is a rescue-work of the first impor- 
tance. It is not enough to repair the visible 
damages of war by providing more care for 
invalids, by building orphan asylums and 
homes for the blind or by giving aid to widows ; 
nor by glorifying war in monuments and 
halls of fame. More important than all these 
is that preventive action which will make it 
possible for the suffering peoples to meet 
again as human beings and in a manner 
worthy of human beings. Upon that is 
dependent the cooperation of the citizens of 
all civilized nations, and with it the salvation 
of mankind. 

The task will surely be lighter than after 
the last great European war. The aftermath 
of this war will be too awful ; and we better 
understand why great nations are so stiff- 
necked in their antagonisms. Had France 
and Germany understood each other, the 
world-war would not have come. The task 
will be easier because the war could not de- 
stroy what pacifism had achieved toward 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 131 

such international understanding. Destruc- 
tive though it be, the war cannot demolish the 
foundations of our decades of careful work. 
We may expect that the work of reconcilia- 
tion, previously so well organized, will be 
resumed immediately after the war, and that 
it will not require complete reorganization. 
That will be a great advantage; for people 
from every country, stirred by the sights and 
horrors of war, will join us, eager to serve in 
the great campaign for the elimination of 
hate. A League of Europeans will arise, — 
not an association with a programme and 
statutes, but a free union of those who, 
aching with their own wounds, understand 
the anguish of the age and are ready to relieve 
it. This League of Europeans will consist of 
those men and women who have come to 
understand that the evils of war poison life 
even when the cannon are silent, and that 
they can only be overcome by an under- 
standing which knows no national border- 
lines, and with the cooperation of all nations. 
Its members will be those who feel it their 



132 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

duty to forget their own pain and their own 
gaping wounds for the service of that which 
is above all nations, humanity. The civic 
heroism of peaceful activity will be manifest 
in their activity. They will be scorned and 
scolded, accused of lack of patriotism and of 
Utopianism. And yet they will be the true 
patriots and the truly practical politicians. 

The number of international problems whose 
solution awaits the organization of the Euro- 
pean nations is infinite. Only a few of those 
which most affect the weal and woe of our 
time could be considered here. We have done 
nothing but call attention to them. When 
the war is past, work will be resumed in the 
arsenals of peace, and the happy time will 
come when all these problems are to be solved 
and the foundation laid for a new humanity. 
Most fundamental of all problems is that of 
establishing international justice. Its course 
may be traced through all the affairs of men. 
W T e have not spoken of it directly, but all 
that has been said here has been meant as a 



INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS 133 

contribution to the fulfilment of this great 
demand. Justice is the foundation of nations, 
and the community of nations can have no 
other foundation. It is the happiness of 
nations. Its absence has been the cause of 
their sorrow. 

European history of the last century, since 
the convulsions of the Napoleonic era, has 
been governed by two principles, one follow- 
ing the other. They are the principles of 
legitimacy and of nationality. The first col- 
lapsed in the storm of revolution ; the latter 
is collapsing under the strain of world- 
catastrophe to-day. A new principle is arising 
to dominate European history, which for the 
first time will give princes and peoples com- 
plete enjoyment of their rights : it is the new, 
the constructive, safeguarding and liberating 
principle of International Justice. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Cooperative Union of Europe 

In the previous chapter we saw under 
what conditions the organization of Europe 
might be extended. We pointed out that a 
selfish interest in organization was a surer 
bond than compulsion. Attention was called 
to the fact that no artificial construction was 
to be considered, but rather the development 
of the germs of organization already at hand. 
Europe must grow into the new community, 
just as in the past it grew into anarchy. The 
old historic units must be combined, not as 
parts of a federation, but rather as indepen- 
dent members of a great union created for a 
specific purpose. It is true that war is a 
political phenomenon, but it would be false 
to assume that the organization which is to 
supersede it must therefore be of a political 
nature. On the contrary, experience demon- 

134 



THE COOPERATIVE UNION 135 

strates that political unions such as our 
present-day alliances finally lead to war. If 
our purpose is to promote the association of 
states for the furtherance of their numerous 
non-political common interests, we shall meet 
less opposition than if we attempt simultane- 
ously to organize them politically. In the 
long run a close association in economic, 
technical, social and ideal fields will inevitably 
make itself felt in political relations as well. 
Following the line of least resistance, there 
will eventually be a complete form of inter- 
national organization. 

If this war, as appears to be the case, dem- 
onstrates the impracticability of the old 
notions of subjugation, and if at the same 
time the realization grows that in Europe, 
with its confusion of politics and nationalities, 
federation is impracticable, then the idea of 
such association will triumph. It will be 
clear that Europe is not going to become 
Cossack by conquest nor Republican by federa- 
tion, and that its future lies rather on the 
diagonal of these forces. It is a "Cooperative 



136 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

Union" (Zweckverband) which promises the 
solution. The conception is a compromise ; 
it overcomes obstacles that would interfere 
with any other plan. The name indicates 
that in such a union, without sacrificing the 
independence of the participants, certain 
specified interests can be better represented 
by common action. The states are not to 
be sacrificed to any final purpose, as in the 
case of a political federation ; rather the 
purpose shall be service to the states. They 
will no longer aspire to solve their problems 
individually, by the method which has so 
often led them to dissipate their energies in 
futile struggle against one another ; but coop- 
eratively, with great economy of effort and 
energy, they will meet the difficulties — 
which in most cases will cease to be such 
simply because of the joint action of the 
interested parties. 

The Cooperative Union of Europe, even 
before the war, had ceased to be a mere de- 
mand. It already existed in a number of 
bipartite and general international agree- 



THE COOPERATIVE UNION 137 

merits, and in various international bureaus 
and commissions. Many matters of trans- 
portation, commerce, civil law, police, science, 
social policy and agriculture were already 
internationally regulated. 1 

These international agreements and the 
various international activities to which they 
gave rise constituted a beginning of an in- 
ternational administration. 2 But they lacked 
unity — there was no centralization. They 
had arisen mechanically in response to changed 
conditions, and there had never been any 
deliberate far-seeing organization of them. 
The age of anarchy had not the power for 
such an achievement. When the war is over 
the time will have come to develop those 
institutions and to organize them with the 
definite purpose of meeting the demands of 
the international situation. Thus the Co- 
operative Union of Europe will find its foun- 
dation already laid. 



1 For further information on this subject see my "Handbuch der 
Friedensbewegung, " 2d edition, vol. 2, p. 269. 

2 See Chapter II, p. 51. 



138 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

There will be no lack of matters which can 
be made subject to international regulation 
and administration. New matters will very 
soon be added to the list of those already so 
administered. 1 Our economic, cultural and 
social needs are already common to all 
nations. The war has not changed the situa- 
tion; nor has the belief, so common in the first 
excitement, that internationalism had col- 
lapsed. When normal conditions are re- 
stored, the imperative necessity of inter- 
national cooperation will again be evident. 
The "Cooperative Union" will meet certain 
general international problems which in the 
past have received special treatment in each 
individual case. Its great importance for 
Europe will be that it will become the organ 
of the states in all these common interests. 
For the first time Europe will have a central 
bureau for her common interests, and thus for 
the first time Europe will be more than 

1 The possibility of adjusting the great commercial conflicts may- 
be mentioned. Internationalization of markets as well as of the high- 
ways leading to them would certainly be a praiseworthy task for the 
Cooperative Union. 



THE COOPERATIVE UNION 139 

a mere geographical expression. However 
trivial its activity may at first be, and how- 
ever difficult the procedure, once it is estab- 
lished, Europe will never again be able to 
dispense with it. It will give Europe solidity 
and cohesion, and the promise of yet more 
for the future. 

The creation of such a Cooperative Union 
would not be without precedent. Such an 
institution has existed for more than a quarter 
of a century in the western hemisphere, in the 
Pan-American Union, which, rather than the 
constitutional form of the United States, is 
adapted to serve as a model for the new 
European Union. In 1889 eighteen American 
republics met in the first Pan-American Con- 
ference. There had been agitation for such 
a union ever since 1810. This continental 
congress has met four times. The fifth con- 
ference was to have been held in November, 
1914, but was postponed on account of the 
war. The Pan-American Union led to the 
establishment in Washington of the Pan- 
American Bureau, which is supported by the 



140 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

twenty-one republics. The Administrative 
Board of this international bureau is com- 
posed of the accredited diplomatic repre- 
sentatives in Washington of the various 
American republics, and the Secretary of 
State of the United States presides. 1 

The discussions and decisions of the con- 
ferences cover the whole field of the extra- 
political relations of the American republics. 
They have to do with the regulation and 
extension of railways and of navigation, of 
tariff problems, of harbor rights, of consular 
affairs, coinage, weights and measures, sanita- 
tion, regulations for aliens, extradition ; 
further, the regulation of civil law, patent 
rights and copyrights, scientific enterprises 
and the conclusion of arbitration treaties. 
An extensive programme for the furtherance of 
international intercourse by means of exchange 
professors and scholars, travel, promotion of 
instruction in languages, etc., has been under- 
taken. Especial attention has been paid to 

1 See my " Pan-Amerika. Entwicklung, Umfang und Bedeutung 
der Pan-Amerikanischen Bewegung (1810-1910)." Berlin, 1910. 



THE COOPERATIVE UNION 141 

the encouragement of trade and commerce 
by exchange of information, by expositions 
and museums of commerce. 

It will occasion no surprise that Pan- 
Americanism, despite its purely economic 
and social programme, has reacted upon polit- 
ical life as well. Years of peaceful cooperation 
between nations and their representatives 
strengthen confidence, engender a habit of 
mind which does not presuppose hostile 
intentions in one's neighbors, and in critical 
issues reenforces the determination to let 
rational considerations decide. Arbitration 
and mediation have reached their highest 
development on the American continents. 
The peaceful cooperative union expedites 
peaceful settlement of such disputes as inev- 
itably arise. 

Pan-Americanism is not only a model for 
Europe; it is a warning as well. Before 
the war there was much talk of the American 
menace, by which was meant economic com- 
petition. It exists ; but in a different form. 
A continent so organized will only too easily 



142 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

win precedence over divided Europe. If that 
disorganization which has led to war should 
continue after the war, the danger of the 
associated states of Pan-America outstripping 
Europe will be far greater. The war has 
changed the relative position of Europe and 
America, and not to the advantage of Europe. 
Europe will lag behind America because of 
its disorganization, and also because of its 
exhaustion. Hence a Cooperative Union 
must be formed, that a united Europe may 
meet that united continent across the ocean 
— not for attack, but to make further coop- 
eration possible. 

The Pan-European Union need not slav- 
ishly follow the American model. It should 
be adapted to the peculiar conditions of 
Europe. Since the relations between the 
European states are livelier than those be- 
tween the American republics and since they 
are so much closer to each other, since their 
interests are more complicated and the possi- 
bilities of conflict more abundant, a confer- 
ence meeting only once in every four or six 



THE COOPERATIVE UNION 143 

years would not amount to much. The 
assemblies should occur at least every three 
years. In the meantime there should be 
a Pan-European Bureau — a central organ 
for the Union — exercising wide powers in 
cooperation with the permanent delegates 
of the various governments. This bureau 
should have its seat in the capital or in a 
leading city of a neutral European country. 
While the Hague Conferences and the Hague 
Bureau would develop the legal relations of 
the nations, the Pan-European Bureau and 
the Pan-European Conferences would control 
the extension and regulation of international 
relations in actual practice. 

Such cooperation in the practical necessities 
of life would soon react upon political life. 
Despite the independence of the individual 
states — or perhaps on account of it — the 
Pan-European Union would not be without 
influence on the political constitution of the 
continent. Continuous cooperation would 
emphasize the economic and cultural inter- 
dependence on the old continent, and in time 



144 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

political differences would lose some of their 
menacing character, and means of reconcilia- 
tion would quite easily be found. A condition 
favorable to the effectiveness of the Hague 
machinery would thus be created. Such 
cooperation would strengthen legal coopera- 
tion, and create that will to law, the absence 
of which has condemned the Hague tribunal 
to impotence. A European Union is at present 
more desirable than a worldwide one, espe- 
cially in view of these political consequences. 
The European states must first become accus- 
tomed to cooperation in their own European 
affairs without complicating them with world- 
considerations. Where broader matters are 
at issue, these can best be settled as before 
by worldwide conferences or through those 
international bureaus which already exist. 
Often the cooperation of the Pan-American 
and the Pan-European Unions will be neces- 
sary, and it may be taken for granted that 
such a Pan-European Union would finally 
develop into a World-Union (Weltzweckver- 
band). But we should begin at the beginning. 



THE COOPERATIVE UNION 145 

It is highly desirable that all the European 
states take part. The isolation of one of the 
great powers or of a group of powers would 
not make it entirely impracticable, but it 
would limit its effectiveness and permit the 
suspicion, to which past European history 
would give only too much support, that the 
Union was directed against some particular 
nation. That would be quite contrary to 
the spirit of the organization. The Union 
should be directed neither against Russia 
nor against England, against the central 
powers or the western powers, but solely 
against the old Europe and its heedlessness, 
its bitterness, its hate and anarchy. Its 
service should be to promote the creation of 
an organized, a cooperative, a self-conscious 
new Europe. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Pacifism of Yesterday and of 
To-morrow 

There are two books whose titles hamper 
the progress of pacifism. The titles only 
are dangerous — not the books. Just be- 
cause Kant's "Eternal Peace" and Bertha 
von Suttner's "Lay Down Your Arms" have 
had so wide a circulation, many have thought 
it unnecessary to know their contents, and 
have been content to accept the wording of 
their titles as the programme of pacifism. 
Accordingly eternal peace and general dis- 
armament appeared to be our programme. 
This has hurt the pacifist movement, but it 
has hurt even more those who have been misled 
by such superficiality. It kept them from 
appreciating those demands of the age to 
which we called their attention. 

When, then, the war broke out, such super- 

146 



PACIFISM — PAST AND FUTURE 147 

ficial and infatuated thinkers held but one 
opinion : that pacifism had failed and was 
proved an illusion. To have disarmed would 
have been madness, and the dream of eternal 
peace was ended. As if we had ever dreamed 
such a dream, or had ever pleaded for dis- 
armament ! Such people were not disturbed 
by the facts of the case ; there were the two 
titles ! A person who defined Darwinism 
to-day as the descent of man from the ape, or 
who defined Socialism as the redistribution of 
all property, would hardly be called educated. 
But a similar pronouncement about pacifism, 
eternal peace and disarmament does not yet 
carry the same stigma. There are still people 
with high-sounding scientific titles who be- 
lieve that there is such a pacifism, who so 
explain its aims, and undertake to refute it 
with such cheap allegations. 

The war has brought no collapse of pacifism. 
It is the collapse of that "practical" policy 
which scorned to accept the pacifists' sugges- 
tions for self-preservation. It is European 
diplomacy and the apostles of force, the fanat- 



148 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

ics of preparedness and the Utopians of 
world-domination, who are bankrupt — they 
who before had to wait for the war accepting 
the cold hard facts. They are bankrupt, as I 
have tried to show in the preceding chapters — 
they who lived in the belief that peace could be 
secured by preparing for war and only by pre- 
paring for war ; they who thought that a 
sharp sword and dry powder outweighed all 
the instruments of reconciliation and peaceful 
settlement. Rivers of blood and the desola- 
tion of war have proved this philosophy 
unfitted for the age. 

The opponents and critics who thought 
pacifism was living in the clouds were mis- 
taken. To pacifists the war brought no dis- 
illusionment. Just because they had seen 
it coming, they had struggled to prevent it, 
and sounded the warning. They indicated 
the path of reason which might have avoided 
it. Had they been as sure of world-peace as 
these others believed them to be, they would 
have ceased their agitation. It would have 
been superfluous. Pacifists never indulged 



PACIFISM — PAST AND FUTURE 149 

in the dream that they who fed the fires of 
national hatred would escape without war. 
They merely demanded that the instruments 
of compromise and conciliation be strength- 
ened, so that hate and jingoism might be 
stifled and disputes be settled by the instru- 
ments of reason. They failed in their en- 
deavor ; but the results of their failure are 
the proof that the salvation of the future lies 
in the success of their programme. 

In the first chapter I pointed out that the 
pacifists years ago diagnosed the situation 
correctly, and foresaw that international 
anarchy must end in explosion. Only a few 
weeks before the outbreak of the war, in early 
June, when very few appreciated the delicacy 
of the situation, when the Austro-Hungarian 
Foreign Minister, Count Berchtold, was still 
honorary president of the Twenty -First World 
Peace Congress that was to have been held 
at Vienna in the fall, and before the crime of 
Serajevo had been committed, I wrote an 
article entitled "Operation, or Medical Treat- 
ment?" for the " Friedens-Warte" It ap- 



150 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

peared in the last number issued before the 
war. I referred to the general feeling that 
things in Europe could not long continue as 
they then were. I expressed the fear that 
this sentiment might force the militarists of 
all nations to attempt to solve the compli- 
cated situation by the sword. I called that a 
desperate method. "This is perhaps one of 
the most dangerous moments in the history 
of our continent," I wrote early in June, 1914. 
"Dangerous because desperation may force 
the decision, and at such times reason loses 
its power." I saw the desire to operate, and 
suggested medical treatment of the evil in- 
stead. "Operation might improve the situa- 
tion," I said ; "the fires of hell, once let loose, 
might consume everything that could serve 
to revivify the madness of militarism. Out 
of that operation might come forth a new life 
without those anachronisms which to-day 
obstruct the evolution of the continent. The 
clash might realize the organization of the 
world and the domination of law." Never- 
theless I advised the peaceful method of 



PACIFISM — PAST AND FUTURE 151 

medical treatment. Eight weeks later Europe 
was aflame. Those who play with the trite 
phrases about pacifism to-day, who call us 
"visionaries," "blown away" by events which 
were a "tremendous disillusionment" to us, 
would do well to read that article — and a 
hundred other articles by our comrades in this 
and other countries. They would learn how 
well aware we were of the critical nature of 
that "peace" whose character we sought to 
change. 

The following paragraph which I take at 
random from her "Marginal Notes to Current 
History" will show how Bertha von Suttner 
felt — she whom our opponents call fortunate 
because supposedly her opportune death kept 
her from a great disillusionment. It was 
written just ten years ago, in 1905 : 

". . . It is high time for this federation of 
Europe. With all the tinder that is being 
fanned between the nations, with the madness 
that is blowing over us from the East, peace 
cannot be maintained much longer; it must be 
secured, i.e. Europe must be organized. . . ." 



152 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

On the 12th of February, 1914, when we 
were engaged in preparations for the Vienna 
Peace Congress, she wrote prophetically in 
her diary: "The newspaper war between 
Austria and Russia is already in full swing. 
Perhaps war will break out and make the 
Congress impossible." 

It cannot be denied that this war would 
have been no disillusionment to Bertha von 
Suttner. Painful indeed — it was painful to 
all pacifists, to all forward-looking men. But 
it was not the surprise it seems to have been 
to those who began to think about pacifism 
only after the war had broken out, but who 
had scoffed at it when they might have been 
of some avail. 

No, the war was no surprise to us. We 
knew that it might have been avoided, and 
we struggled loyally for that end. Our ideas 
had begun to influence politics, and the 
achievements of international reconciliation 
grew every day. The hope arose that the 
great crisis might be passed, and that the 
people of Europe might without a bloody 



PACIFISM — PAST AND FUTURE 153 

struggle arrive at a settlement promising 
peace and harmony for the future. But the 
forces of international anarchy were too 
strong. The war came before our ideas had 
won full sway. Now it must complete what 
we had not yet achieved. Its brutal method 
of instruction may perhaps be more successful. 
We pacifists were misrepresented both in 
regard to the extent of our hopes and to the 
instruments by which we hoped to attain them. 
We were accused of the crudest attitude 
toward the complicated problem of disarma- 
ment — the first impulse to the investigation 
and study of which had been given by us. It 
was said that we sought disarmament, even 
one-sided disarmament of our own people, 
while the other nations were still in armor. 
Disarmament was made to appear the funda- 
ment of our teachings. Such is the curse of 
those familiar titles, "Lay Down Your Arms" 
and "Eternal Peace." Nothing was further 
from our minds than such an attempt to 
begin a house with the roof. We looked 
forward to a general and simultaneous relief 



154 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

from the burden of armaments as the final 
consequence of that reorganization of inter- 
national relations which we urged. 

We were misrepresented on other subjects 
as well. We were said to regard arbitration 
as a universal remedy, which would solve the 
most difficult problems. In reality we looked 
upon it as only one among many peaceful 
methods of adjustment. This was another 
case where a problem, the study of which had 
developed into a great science, was stated 
with the crudest simplicity. It was not we 
who were guilty of that misrepresentation, 
but the naivete of our opponents who did 
not observe that we understood that not all 
international conflicts were capable of legal 
solution, and that the character of these dis- 
putes would have to be changed before they 
would be capable of such solution. Our 
critics had no conception of the problem of 
transforming international anarchy into inter- 
national organization, or of the change in the 
character of international disputes thus to be 
effected. They knew nothing of the funda- 



PACIFISM — PAST AND FUTURE 155 

mental problem of pacifism. In their heads 
buzzed only the two phrases, disarmament 
and eternal peace. 

They were equally ignorant of the extent 
of pacifism. They had no fineness of per- 
ception ; they could only see things in lumps : 
here an evil, there a remedy. Of the great 
work of education, of the gradual diffusion 
of ideas with the purpose of gradual trans- 
formation of an evil into a rational state of 
affairs, they noticed nothing. In how many 
fields of human activity pacifism makes itself 
felt to-day — often without its agents being 
aware of the pacifist origin or the pacifist 
purpose of their activity ! Has not every po- 
litical party, every religious confession, every 
school of thought, accepted at least a part 
of the pacifist programme or in some fashion 
undertaken pacifist activities — often indeed 
so unconsciously that they thought that they 
were opposing organized pacifism? Has not 
all the work of the world become pacifist in 
purpose, do not the sciences of international 
law, economics and sociology emphasize their 






156 THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE 

pacifist elements, have not entirely new 
sciences such as the Science of Internation- 
alism (Internationalogie) and the Economics 
of Human Life (Menschen-okonomie) arisen 
as a result of the pacifist movement? Its 
radius of action is far greater than the horizon 
of those who scorn and misunderstand it. 
Its teachings permeate every field of human 
activity, and every kind of activity serves its 
purposes. In roundabout ways, but com- 
prehensively and certainly, it draws near its 
goal. 

In the turmoil of the war we are told to 
unlearn and learn anew. It will be easier 
to renounce old errors when to have believed 
them carries no stigma. Good ! Let us re- 
vise our views, adapt them to reality, and 
then meet life with them. Pacifism expects 
such a revision on the part of its opponents 
who have been so guilty of misunderstanding 
and misrepresentation. Pacifism does not 
need to unlearn. Perhaps alone in this time 
of general collapse, it needs no such revision. 
Its great hour has come. When humanity 



PACIFISM — PAST AND FUTURE 157 

awakens from this bloody hallucination, when 
it sees and counts and realizes the cost of all 
the harvest of war, when it is able coolly to 
distinguish between cause and effect, means 
and end — then humanity will and must re- 
turn to the doctrines offered it so long ago by 
this despised pacifism. 

The hour draws near. In millions of 
minds the world over the thought arises, 
and the fateful question is put : Was it 
inevitable ? Must it be thus eternally ? And 
the answer swells to an iron echo, awakening 
and sweeping the world : NO ! 

The past can no longer be revised, but the 
future is in our hands. The age that is 
dawning is the age of peace, the great era of 
restoration, of knowledge taught by bloody 
experience, of reconciliation and adjustment, 
the age of the funeral celebration for this last 
tremendous sacrifice to human aberration, the 
great age, foreseen by us and prepared with 
our heart's blood, the era of 

THE RESTORATION OF EUROPE. 



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